'India needs to take this seriously': Trudeau on US charging Indian for plotting Pannun's killing

Day after US Department of Justice charged Indian man Nikhil Gupta for allegedly plotting the murder of New York City resident and a designated terrorist in India, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Canada sought more cooperation from New Delhi in the investigation and said “India needs to take this seriously”. “The news coming out of the United States further underscores what we’ve been talking about from the very beginning, which is that India needs to take this seriously,” Reuters quoted Trudeau as saying in Ottawa. “The Indian government needs to work with us to ensure that we’re getting to the bottom of this,” he added. On Wednesday, the US Department of Justice charged Nikhil Gupta for working with an Indian government employee on a plot to assassinate a New York City resident, “who advocated for a Sikh sovereign state in northern India”. The document did not name the “government employee”, nor did it name Pannun. It said the government employee contacted Gupta to assassinate the NY resident. The purported killer whom Gupta contacted for the killing was an undercover cop and Gupta was arrested in June this year by the Czech authorities. The Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was slain in Canada, was also mentioned in the document. Trudeau had claimed that Indian agents were responsible for Nijjar’s murder but India denied this accusation and requested for evidence. As a result, India and Canada had a diplomatic spat that began to somewhat improve when India started providing visa services again in Canada. India made it apparent that Canada has not shown any proof for their allegation, and that country is prepared to assist with the investigation should proof be offered. Earlier, the MEA had reacted to the report of the foiled bid to kill Pannun and formed a high-level enquiry committee to look into the security concerns raised by the US. No reaction has come from the MEA yet on the US indictment. Commented on the India-Canada situation, Canada foreign minister Melanie Joly on Wednesday urged India to be more forthcoming in the ongoing murder investigation. “Clearly we expect more cooperation on their part and more engagement on their part,” the minister said. Canada has not yet charged anyone in the murder of Nijjar. With inputs from agencies