Canada assures action against terrorist groups

With reports that pro-Khalistan groups have become active once again in Canada,the visiting Canadian foreign minister John Baird on Wednesday said that it will do everything possible to fight radical extremism

With reports that pro-Khalistan groups have become active once again in Canada,the visiting Canadian foreign minister John Baird on Wednesday said that it will do everything possible to fight radical extremism.

Baird said: Our government will do everything possible under the law to combat radical extremism by such groups in Canada. He pointed out that Canada had in 2003 listed certain groups as terrorist organisations. We agreed that we got to do more to tackle this challenge and we are completely on the same page as India. It (extremism) is completely unacceptable, he said.

The issue was raised by Foreign Minister S M Krishna during his meeting with Baird. The minister had made a very good intervention on this in our meeting, he said,adding that earlier too the issue had been raised by PM Manmohan Singh and Krishna.

On Canadian officials taking part in certain meetings organised by extremist groups,Braid said: From time to time,there are representatives,not at senior political level,who find themselves at these events,not necessarily knowing the extremist nature of these militant groups. He said when such matters are brought to their notice,the Canadian authorities tackle it aggressively. We will do more to promote,educate officials at political level,public service level or the military level. The fight against extremism,radicals,terrorist knows no boundaries and we will be a strong ally, he said.