Pakistan accused India on Thursday of funding two killings on its territory, a situation “very similar” to that in Canada, where a leader of the Sikh community was killed in June 2023.
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Pakistani Foreign Minister Muhammad Syrus Sajjad Qazi asserted last September and October that “Indian agents were using technology and secure bases in other countries to carry out assassinations in Pakistan.”
“They recruited, financed and supported criminals, terrorists and unsuspecting civilians who played specific roles in these murders,” he continued, according to a report in The Guardian newspaper.
These allegations are reminiscent of the departure of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who last September accused India of ordering the June 18 murder of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar. This statement sparked an outcry and plunged Canada into a diplomatic crisis with India.
Then, in November, the United States announced that it was investigating an attempted assassination of another Sikh leader, this time in New York. The man suspected of ordering the attempted murder allegedly had three other targets executed in Canada, American prosecutors argued in their court filings.
Pakistan notes similarities in these events with those occurring on its territory.
“I see a modus operandi very similar to the murder in Canada. It was commissioned at the request of the Indian government. […] “It appears that India’s network of extrajudicial and extraterritorial killings has become a global phenomenon,” Minister Qazi said.