Daily Times

Pakistan’s Foreign Office (FO) has slammed India for its alleged involvement in the murder of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar saying that the incident reflects India’s global “extrajudicial” network of state-sponsored targeted killings.

Addressing the media during the weekly press briefing in Islamabad on Wednesday, FO spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said that the news of Indian involvement in an extrajudicial killing in Canada reflects that New Delhi’s “network of extra-territorial killings had now gone global”.

Responding to a question pertaining to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s statement of “credible evidence” linking India to Nijjar’s murder, the FO spokesperson said: “India’s assassination of a Canadian national on Canadian soil is a clear violation of international law and the UN principle of state sovereignty.”

Terming the incident as a “reckless and irresponsible act”, Baloch questioned India’s reliability as a credible international partner and its claims for enhanced global responsibilities. She also recalled India’s previous record in such extra-territorial activities accentuating that the Indian premier intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), had been actively involved in abductions and assassinations in South Asia. The development comes as Pro-Khalistan Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a strong supporter of an independent Sikh homeland known as Khalistan and local leader of Sikhs For Justice and Khalistan referendum campaign, was gunned down on June 18 outside a Sikh cultural centre in Canada’s British Columbia.

Baloch also reminded that in December 2022, Pakistan released a comprehensive dossier providing concrete and irrefutable evidence of India’s involvement in the Lahore attack of June 2021. The attack was planned and executed by Indian intelligence.

Separately the FO also mentioned Kulbhushan Jadhav’s – a high-ranking Indian military officer commander – confession acknowledging his involvement in directing, financing, and executing terror and sabotage in Pakistan. Earlier this week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau while speaking in the House of Commons, had said that Canada’s national security agencies are investigating “credible allegations” that the “agents of the government of India” were involved in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Canada has also named the diplomat who has been expelled for plotting to kill the Sikh leader as Pavan Kumar Rai, the head of India’s intelligence agency RAW in Canada, operating from the Indian High Commission.

The two countries have since engaged in a tit-for-tat diplomatic row with Canada expelling the Indian intelligence operative Rai. In response, India too summoned the Canadian High Commissioner in New Delhi informing him to leave the country on Tuesday.

“The concerned diplomat has been asked to leave India within the next five days,” India’s Ministry of External Affairs said.

Addressing Indian allegations linking Pakistan with the Anantnag encounter over in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), Baloch said that India has a “habit of implicating Pakistan in anything that happens under its watch”, especially in the illegally occupied territory. Responding to a question pertaining to Pakistan’s engagement with India at levels of the foreign ministries and Director General Military Operations (DGMOs), the FO spokesperson apprised that the main channel of communication between Pakistan and India, i.e., at the level of diplomatic missions had reduced its strength to charge d’affaires. “If functional, the DGMO level also existed between the two countries,” she added.

Expressing Pakistan’s willingness to hold talks with India, the spokesperson said that Pakistan is ready to hold talks with India on all disputes, especially the core disputed Himalayan territory.

“With regard to third-party mediation, Pakistan has always said that we would welcome it on the IIOJK issue on the basis of the UN Security Council resolutions and in accordance with the principles of international law,” she said. Meanwhile, commenting on India’s state-sponsored human rights violation in the occupied valley, Baloch highlighted that the Indian occupation forces in IIOJK have killed 68 Kashmiris, including women and children with 13 custodial killings in the first eight months of 2023 alone. Whereas 2,900 persons including political activists, businesspeople, women, and youth were arbitrarily arrested, she added.

Earlier, Foreign Secretary Syrus Qazi said Pakistan was not surprised by the Canadian accusation and the world must recognise the ways of the country it considered “a supposedly indispensable ally”.

Qazi’s remarks came during a Tuesday night press briefing at the United Nations Mission in New York, where he is accompanying interim Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar to attend the 78th UN General Assembly session. “We are aware of the nature of our eastern neighbour, we know what they are capable of … so it is not a surprise for us. “We caught [one of their] serving naval intelligence officers on our soil. He is in our custody and admitted that he came here to create instability and spread evil,” he said when asked for a comment on the allegation levelled against India. “There must be some truth to the Canadian premier’s allegation, that’s why they levelled it,” he said, adding that the situation was developing, “but going by our experience, we are not surprised”. Answering a follow-up question, the foreign secretary maintained that most of the time, Indian involvement was found in instability in Pakistan. “Kulbhushan Jadhav] is a living example of it, and the world needs to know,” he added. In response to a question about conflicts with India, Qazi refused that Pakistan’s responses had been defensive.

“If there is any country that understands India correctly, that’s us. And we are the only country in many respects that is not afraid of India,” he further stated, highlighting that Pakistan had been resolutely protecting its freedom against a rival country 60 times bigger in size.

“We have been doing this for the past 70 years … and will do it again when the need arises.”

Again referring to the India-Canada row, he added, “This is no surprise for us, but the world must realise what are the ways of the country they have made their supposedly indispensable ally.”