North American officials have called off a plan to kill a Sikh activist in the United States, the news comes two months after Canada accused the Indian government of involvement in the death of another leader of the Khalistan Freedom Movement.
According to the newspaper Financial TimesThe Biden administration notified the Indian government of the discovery of the program following Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US in June.
oh The Washington Post It said the White House had told Indian officials that North American intelligence agencies suspected Indian government involvement.
The target of the attack was Gurpadwant Singh Bannun, identified as a dual Canadian and North American citizen and a lawyer for the US-based group Sikhs for Justice.
Like Canadian Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was assassinated in Canada in June, Pannoon is part of a movement demanding independence for the Indian region of Khalistan that includes the state of Punjab.
Both Nijjar and Bannun are classified as terrorists in India. On Monday, November 4, Bannun was formally charged by India’s counter-terrorism unit for recording and sharing a video warning Sikhs not to travel on Air India flights.
According to Pannun, his message was intended to call for a boycott of Air India and there was no threat to passengers’ lives as Indian officials claimed.
In a statement to a British newspaper GuardianA Sikh lawyer accuses the Indian government of a campaign of “transnational terrorism”.
Second do itUS officials must deal with this threat American Sovereignty, Freedom of Expression, and Democracy.”
US National Security Council spokesperson Adrian Watson said in a statement that Indians expressed “surprise and concern” at the White House’s announcement and pledged to “investigate the matter”.
In response to the US, India once again said that the practice of political assassinations was “not in line with the principles” of the country’s authorities, as was the case during the Canadian government’s public accusation in September.
Diplomatic tension
The case comes at the height of the Biden administration’s drive to get closer to the Modi government as part of a strategy to contain China – India is part of the US, Australia and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad). Japan; And the Indian Prime Minister who addressed the US Congress was given a warm welcome by the US government in June.
The Biden administration has been pressured by international organizations to make more demands on the Indian government regarding human rights compliance in India, and it is not yet clear whether the case was directly reported. Financial Times affect the contract of sale DronesSigned before Modi’s last US visit.
At that time, the Indian Ministry of Defense had committed to purchase 31 Drones The MQ-9B SeaGuardian is a business worth around three billion dollars (2,700 million euros).
Regarding this matter, the spokesperson of the US State Department was quoted The Washington Post On condition of anonymity, he said only that the Pentagon “does not comment on proposed sales or transfers before they are formally notified to Congress.”
Ancient fighting
Following independence from the United Kingdom in 1947, India was divided by a movement favoring the creation of an independent state with a Sikh majority.
The Sikh community in the Punjab region demanded the creation of a third state, Khalistan, with the creation of two sovereign states, India and Pakistan.
The freedom struggle reached its climax in the 1980s, when Indira Gandhi’s government ordered the Indian Army’s attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar – the Sikhism’s holiest shrine – which killed hundreds if not thousands of people. .
A few months later, in October 1984, Gandhi was assassinated by two Sikh bodyguards in retaliation for the attack on the Golden Temple.
In 1985, Sikh militants bombed an Air India flight between Montreal and London, Canada. The plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 329 people on board, including 268 Canadians, 27 British and 24 Indians.
Another bomb targeting an Air India flight departing from an airport in Tokyo, Japan exploded during a baggage handling operation, killing two staff members.