Daily Times

Emboldened by the international community’s slap-on-the-wrist reactions to several complaints about Indian maneuvres to dismantle the sovereign order through extraterritorial episodes of violence, New Delhi had begun to think of the entire globe as its sandbox. Last year’s back-to-back incidents of authorities in Canada and its supposed ally, the US, standing up to this wave of terror and proclaiming, “Not on Our Watch!” must have come as a good jolt of shock. As the Modi Administration continues to make up excuses to defend its Mossad-style operations, Washington, through its own network of backdoor diplomacy, has succeeded in getting the main accused behind the plot to murder a Sikh separatist leader in New York, extradited from the Czech Republic.

Nikhil Gupta, alleged to have offered his murder-for-hire services, himself boasted about targetting Hardeep Singh Najjar, another Sikh separatist leader shot dead last June in Canada, in addition to “so many” more. Meanwhile, Washington’s pressure on India to ensure accountability in the government’s actions against the rise of separatist movements outside its boundaries piles on.

There’s no denying the dent in Indian ties with Canada, which is in no mood to let a brutal onslaught on its autonomy slide. However, the egrocious policies of the Indian foreign ministry – oscillating between outright denial in front of the West and shameless admittance, backed with bizarre buzzwords, when asked about orchestrating murders within Pakistan are parallel to none. Just as Pakistan’s ambassador to the UN Munir Akram urged for a “concerted campaign” against the influence and arsenal of hardened militant organisations like the TTP, it would do well for Pakistan to collaborate with other countries on Indian hawks’ radar to investigate the nexus between New Delhi, crime syndicates and the dark web.

Separatist or terrorist, India should utilize diplomatic channels to share any evidence it has against any individuals it finds operating against its interests. In today’s day and age, as India seeks to downplay its domestic authoritarianism, repeated attempts to unilaterally intervene in other countries will not help it achieve the desired status of a civilised nation. *