Canada minister says he ‘confirmed’ Shah behind campaign against separatists

He did not say how Canada knew of Shah’s alleged involvement.

New Delhi hasn’t responded to this but has consistently denied that Canada has provided any evidence and has called the allegations absurd.

Testifying before the committee, Drouin stated that she did not need Trudeau’s authorisation to leak the information. She said that the decision to leak information to The Washington Post was part of a strategy she and Morrison devised to ensure a major US outlet reported on Canada’s stance in its escalating foreign-interference dispute with India. The strategy, she added, was seen by the Prime Minister’s Office.

“We provided non-classified information on our actions and the evidence linking the Indian government to illegal activities targeting Canadians, including life-threatening threats,” Drouin testified, adding that similar briefings were shared with Canadian opposition leaders.

Conservative public safety critic Raquel Dancho asked why information was shared with The Washington Post before being made available to the Canadian public. “Canadians wouldn’t know unless they were able to read The Washington Post. I find it unfair that details were released to them but not provided to Canadians,” Dancho said.

The Globe and Mail reported that the leaked information connected India to the killing of Sukhdool Singh Gill, a Khalistan sympathiser, who was shot in Winnipeg on September 20, 2023. This incident occurred two days after Trudeau’s statement in Parliament alleging India’s involvement in the June 2023 gangland murder of Khalistan separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C.

While no charges have been filed in Gill’s case, RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme claimed on October 14 that the evidence implicates India in several killings, although only Nijjar’s name was specified.

Commissioner Duheme said he did not release the information publicly, as it could interfere with ongoing investigations. “It’s investigative material we typically keep internal,” he remarked, noting the intelligence shared with The Washington Post was not deemed classified under Canada’s national security standards.

India’s ties with Canada have suffered a setback since September last year, when Trudeau alleged the Indian government’s “potential” involvement in Nijjar’s killing. India had rejected the charges as “absurd” and “motivated”.

There was no official response from the Indian government to the latest allegation by the Canadian government officials.

Before Tuesday, Canadian officials would only state on the record that the plot could be traced back to the “highest levels of the Indian government”.

Speaking in Pune on Saturday, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had said, “We completely reject the manner in which the Canadian government targeted our High Commissioner and diplomats… There are a small minority of people there, who have made themselves into what appears to be a bigger political voice… Today they are saying things about us, but if you look at who first raised the presence of organised crime in Canada. We were telling them and they were not listening… On our side, we have reasoned with the Canadian system, saying ‘look, don’t go down this extremist path’.”

Earlier, the Indian government had rejected the allegations of the involvement of its diplomats in the Nijjar case. “The Government of India strongly rejects these preposterous imputations and ascribes them to the political agenda of the Trudeau government, centred around vote bank politics,” the MEA had said.