As India is heading towards its general election, which is expected to be held in April and May next year, there is a growing international conspiracy targeting Indian authorities, possibly with the ulterior motive of maligning the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). With the agenda of misleading people, left-leaning media outlets in India are running vile propaganda targeting Mr. Modi and BJP.
As part of such deep-rooted conspiracy, within days of US authorities raised allegations against Nikhil Gupta, an Indian government official of an “unsuccessful plot to assassinate” a Sikh separatist named Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on US soil, UK newspaper Daily Mail in a report claims, Gurdip Bath, a special envoy of India to Britain ‘plotted’ the kidnap Mehul Choksi, a fugitive diamond tycoon in the Caribbean at the behest of the Indian state. Gurdip Bath, who has citizenship of St Kitts and Nevis and has acted as its commercial attaché to the United Kingdom for 11 years – strongly denied involvement.
According to The New York Times, Federal prosecutors accused an Indian national Nikhil Gupta of attempting to kill a Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York City. The indictment says the plan was linked to the June assassination of a Sikh separatist named Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada, allegations that could complicate relations between Washington, Ottawa and New Delhi.
Media reports said, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, born in the district of Jalandhar in the North Indian state of Punjab moved to Canada in 1997 and settled in the province of British Columbia. During his stay in Canada, Nijjar became actively involved in Khalistan separatist activities and was the mastermind behind Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF), a banned militant group.
In India, Nijjar was wanted under country’s Terrorist Act for several cases, including a 2007 cinema bombing in Punjab that killed six people and injured 40, and the 2009 assassination of Sikh Indian politician Rulda Singh.
Following death of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ignited a diplomatic crisis by accusing the Indian government of involvement in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canada-based Sikh leader, in suburban Vancouver in June 2023. Trudeau’s allegations were based on supposed intelligence that Canada has not disclosed.
This controversy appeared amid Trudeau’s declining popularity and a cool reception at the G20 Summit.
Following Trudeau’s remarks, both Canada and India expelled senior diplomats from each other’s embassies. Canada has reportedly sought support from the United States in this dispute, although the Biden administration denied rejecting Canada’s request and seems cautious about antagonizing India.
There are several factors that warrant caution in immediately supporting Trudeau’s claims. Firstly, the nature of Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s background is complex. While Canadians may portray him as a plumber with political activism on the side, his history is more intricate.
Nijjar resided in India for two decades, during which he joined the Khalistan Tiger Force, a separatist group engaged in an insurgency in Punjab, a state in India with a population similar to that of Florida.
The Khalistan movement advocates for a separate Sikh state, often resorting to violence since the majority of Sikhs reject such religious nationalism. In 1997, Nijjar allegedly fled to Canada using a fake passport under the alias Ravi Sharma. Although he was arrested by police at the Toronto airport, he sought asylum, citing alleged police harassment in India. While his asylum claim was initially rejected, he later obtained Canadian citizenship and a passport through marriage to a Canadian woman, despite suspicions that the marriage was fraudulent.
In 2015, Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) reportedly used Nijjar to establish a training camp for Khalistan militants near Mission, British Columbia. India accused Nijjar of involvement in various terrorist acts, including planning the 2007 bombing of a Ludhiana cinema, the 2009 murder of prominent Sikh politician Rulda Singh, a conspiracy to assassinate Hindu religious leader Kamaldeep Sharma in Jalandhar, involvement in a temple explosion in Patiala in 2010, and several assassinations.
Effectively, Canada knowingly harbored an individual suspected of being involved in numerous violent activities. India’s concern about Canada’s tolerance for Sikh extremism is justified, as Canada hosts not only the Khalistan Tiger Force but also the World Sikh Organization, Sikhs for Justice, and Babbar Khalsa International, all of which Indian officials claim promote violence or have links to foreign powers.
Meanwhile, Biden administration clearly is cooking a notorious conspiracy against India by prominently publicizing a bogus claim of attempted assassination of a Sikh separatist named Gurpatwant Singh Pannun. Instead of terming Khalistan activists as separatists and terrorists, controversial British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in its report terms Gurpatwant Singh Pannun as “Sikh activist”. It may be mentioned here that BBC faces accusations of appeasing and in most cases promoting terrorist groups. Following October 7 Hamas pogrom in Israel, BBC has notoriously attempted to hide Hamas crimes.
Meanwhile The Guardian in its report attempted to brand Nikhil Gupta as Indian government agent by quoting US prosecutors and parroted Washington’s lies stating “US prosecutors have accused [Nikhil Gupta] an agent of the Indian government of directing the attempted assassination of an American [and Canadian] citizen [named Gurpatwant Singh Pannun] on US soil, according to a superseding indictment released by the Department of Justice, which revealed new details about India’s alleged targeting of Sikh activists around the world”.
According to BBC report, allegations are being raised by the Biden administration accusing Nikhil Gupta of “trying to hire a hitman for US$100,000 in cash to assassinate Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.
On November 29, 2023, United States Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York in a press release said, “Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Matthew G. Olsen, the Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, Anne Milgram, the Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”), and James Smith, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), announced the filing of murder-for-hire charges against Indian national Nikhil Gupta, a/k/a “Nick”, in connection with his participation in a foiled plot to assassinate a US citizen in New York City. The charges are contained in a Superseding Indictment unsealed today in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. The case is pending before US District Judge Victor Marrero. Czech authorities arrested and detained Gupta on June 30, 2023, pursuant to the bilateral extradition treaty between the United States and the Czech Republic…”
Fresh controversy centering Gurdip Bath and Mehul Choksi
In May 2023, The Guardian in a report said, Mehul Choksi won the first round of a court battle to prove that a UK-based group including a younger woman was part of an Indian intelligence service plot to lure him to a Caribbean villa to be kidnapped and extradited to his home country.
The high court of Antigua and Barbuda has found that Mehul Choksi has an “arguable” case in relation to his civil claim against the country’s attorney general and chief of police over the response to his alleged abduction and illegal rendition to Dominica in May 2021.
A submission from Choksi’s lawyers details an alleged conspiracy in which he is said to have been subjected to “inhuman or degrading treatment” after his alleged kidnapping in Antigua. It is claimed that the elaborate plot to steal him away had been carefully prepared in collusion with the Indian state.
On July 3, 2023, Weekly Blitz published an extensive report centering Mehul Choksi and his suspicious tactics used for averting extradition to India. And after almost five months of publication of this report, Mehul Choksi has resurfaced in UK Daily Mail. According to Daily Mail, Michael Polak, of Justice Abroad told the newspaper “The NCA must investigate and prosecute all the individuals named in proceedings. To fail to do so would allow Britain to be a haven for those accused of international criminal activity, encouraging state-sponsored kidnapping and murder”.
