‘Flatly false’: US denies snubbing Canada over Sikh leader’s murder
A sign outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara temple is seen after the killing on its grounds in June 2023 of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada September 18, 2023. PHOTO: REUTERS
In the midst of diplomatic tensions between Canada and India over the killing of a Sikh leader, the spokesperson for the US National Security Council, Adrienne Watson, firmly denied on Wednesday any claims suggesting that the United States had rejected Canada's efforts in investigation, categorically dismissing them as “flatly false”.
She was responding to a report published by The Washington Post after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday said that his country was investigating "credible allegations" about the potential involvement of Indian government agents in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, 45, a vocal advocate of the Khalistan movement, in British Columbia in June.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has rejected outright Canada's suspicions that New Delhi's agents had links to the murder.
Read more: India tells citizens in Canada to exercise caution as ties worsen
“Reports that we rebuffed Canada in any way on this are flatly false. We are coordinating and consulting with Canada closely on this issue,” Watson wrote on her X handle.
She went on to say that this is a serious matter and the US supports Canada’s ongoing law enforcement efforts, adding that her government was also engaging with the Indian government.
Khalistan history
Khalistan is the name of an independent Sikh state whose creation was the goal of a bloody Sikh insurgency in the 1980s and 1990s in India's northern state of Punjab, during which tens of thousands were killed.
As the ruling party at the time, Congress led the fight against the separatists and eventually suppressed the insurgency.
But it took the lives of key Congress leaders Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984, and Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh, who was killed in a bomb blast by Sikh separatists in 1995.
Sikhs in Australia, Britain, Canada and the United States support the separatist demand and occasionally stage protests outside its embassies.
Canada has the largest population of Sikhs outside the Indian state of Punjab, with about 770,000 people reporting Sikhism as their religion in the 2021 census.