Finding glory in unlawful acts has become a norm for the Modi government. Hawks in New Delhi are obsessed with the idea of assassination. The first disclosure came from Canada where renowned dissenting Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar was assassinated in June this year. The cold-blooded assassination of a Sikh leader created more ripples internationally when Canada officially intimated the involvement of the Indian government in global criminal acts.
The disclosure was too big for India to trivialize because none other than Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself spoke about the shocking incident. The suit was followed by global players including US, UK, Australia and EU who categorically supported the Canadian stance and asked India to cooperate in a transparent inquiry. How contentiously India responded to these allegations is itself a self-explanatory package of proofs endorsing the Canadian point of view. Recent episodes of a foiled Indian assassination plot exposed in the USA are more shocking for those who are still optimistic and expect some morality from the Modi regime. Delhi hawks tried to replay the Hardeep Singh Nijjar assassination plot against Gurpatwant Singh in the USA.
The scheme, motives, tactics and handlers of assassination plots in Canada and the USA are the same except for the result. Hardeep Singh Nijjar lost their life in the hands of Indian-sponsored assassins and subsequent investigations exposed the role of Delhi-based handlers.
No rocket science is involved in connecting the dots to unearth the Indian hand behind an obvious self-revealing Sikh elimination plan.
Things unfolded differently because US agencies probably had a fair clue about the Indian assassination series aimed at dissenting Sikh leaders. Apparently trap laid by a vigilant US agency worked effectively once an Indian Nikhil Gupta hired a hitman to assassinate the Sikh leader in the US. Indian plan busted with a bang once Nikhil Gupta was formally charged as accused of conspiring the murder of an American citizen on US soil on the behest of an Indian handler.
Information released from the office of US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams about the accused reveals that the accused Nikhil Gupta “conspired from India to assassinate, right here in New York City, a US citizen of Indian origin who has publicly advocated for the establishment of a sovereign state for Sikhs, an ethnoreligious minority group in India.” The hitman hired by Nikhil Gupta was reportedly an undercover agent, and handler who happened to be an intelligence officer based in Delhi is undoubtedly a state actor and intended target for the dissenting Sikh leader Gurpatwant Singh a US national.
No rocket science is involved in connecting the dots to unearth the Indian hand behind an obvious self-revealing Sikh elimination plan. Reportedly, Gupta and his handler planned to pay a hitman $100,000 to assassinate Gurpatwant Singh, a dual US-Canadian citizen who is a senior figure in the rights group “Sikhs for Justice”. Gupta hired a hitman and gave him a down payment of $15,000, but the would-be “assassin” was actually an undercover agent of the US Drug Enforcement Agency.
Gupta managed to flee the USA after making the down payment, he was later arrested in the Czech Republic and his extradition under a bilateral treaty is expected soon. A matter of such a grave nature was under discussion between the US and Indian intelligence counterparts. Indian media have been reporting that the slain Hardeep and survivor Gurpatwat Singh were suspected by New Delhi of having facilitated the terrorism in Punjab. However, there seems to be no evidence to substantiate this allegation, and no link was ever made public tying both individuals with illegal acts.
As reported in US media, accused Indian citizen Nikhil Gupta has been involved in narcotics and weapons trafficking. Such blatant disclosures about targeted killings of dissenting figures having the nationality of the host country are enough evidence of rogue methods of Indian state actors.
Contradicting the claims of being the largest democracy in the world; India under Modi’s rule has transformed into a hell for minorities. Sikhs in Punjab are victims of the Indian hawkish approach. The notorious Operation Blue Star against Sikh dissenters executed mercilessly at Golden Temple in 1984 laid the foundation of Sikh separatism in India. Indira Gandhi, then sitting prime minister, had to pay the price for a blood bath in the Golden Temple as two Sikh bodyguards shot her down in broad daylight. Brutal anti-Sikh riots launched by extremist Hindu organizations after Indira Gandhi’s murder compelled the community to seek refuge abroad. BJP and its militant sub-organizations are rapidly converting India into a Hindu Rashter.
Crackdown on Sikh dissenting quarters is not an exclusive phenomenon rather systematic atrocities against religious minorities have taken deeper roots as a policy tool in the Indian playbook. Pakistan has been repeatedly pointing out Indian state-sponsored terrorism at regional and diplomatic forums. Horrific tales of Indian state-sponsored violence and genocidal brutalities against religious minorities are visible in Manipur, Punjab, Kashmir and the rest of the Hindu-dominated states.
Now, the state agencies have started spreading their wings out of South Asian territories. The recurrence of assassination attempts through hired hitmen on the soil of ally countries speaks volumes about the doubtful credibility of the Indian state. The arrest of Nikhil Gupta for a foiled assassination plot on US soil and the targeted killing of Hardeep Singh in Canada have substantiated the truth revealed by Pakistan about a terrorist network run by Khal Bhushan Jhadev. For the sake of regional and global peace, a rogue state like India must not be let loose to play havoc on the soil of other countries.
The writer is a graduate of QAU, a PhD scholar and a freelance writer. He can be reached at [email protected]