India sounds alarm over Pannun's threat even as US Senate hearing dominated by alleged assassination plot

New Delhi: Even as New Delhi conveyed to Washington DC its concerns over Gurpatwant Singh Pannun’s threat to attack the Parliament of India, the alleged role of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in a plot to kill the Khalistani Sikh advocate in the United States dominated a hearing in the US Senate.

The director of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Christopher Wray, is set to visit India next week, Eric Garcetti, the envoy of Washington DC to New Delhi, said on Thursday. The FBI chief’s visit will follow the US Principal Deputy National Security Advisor Jonathan Finer’s tour to New Delhi. The back-to-back visits by the senior officials of President Joe Biden’s administration to New Delhi came amid speculation over the implication on the bilateral relations of the allegation by the US Department of Justice that an official of the Government of India had been involved in a plot to assassinate Pannun, a leader of the secessionist Sikhs for Justice, in New York.

“We do take threats seriously,” Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), told journalists on Thursday. He was replying to a query on New Delhi’s view on Pannun’s threat to attack the Parliament of India. Pannun, a US and Canadian citizen and Khalistani Sikh leader, vowed to carry out the strikes on or before December 13 – the anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attack on the Parliament of India. “We have taken up this matter with the Canadian and the American authorities,” Bagchi said.

“As you're aware, we have robust security, cyber-security, counterterrorism and counter-narcotics cooperation with the US agencies. We are also engaged in capacity-building programmes. So as part of this ongoing bilateral cooperation, a visit by the FBI director is in the works,” Bagchi said, subtly trying to de-link Wray’s visit to New Delhi and the US allegation about the role of an official of the Government of India in getting a hitman hired for an alleged plot to assassinate Pannun in America.

The allegation by Washington DC against New Delhi followed a similar claim by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government in Ottawa about the role of India in the June 18 killing of a Khalistani Sikh extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjar at the parking lot of a gurdwara in Surrey in the British Columbia province of Canada.

The allegations against New Delhi figured prominently during a hearing on “transnational repression” at the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “We’ve seen disturbing allegations against an Indian Government official for involvement in planning to assassinate in New York a US citizen who’s critical of the Indian government,” Democrat Senator from Maryland, Ben Cardin, chair of the committee, said at the beginning of the hearing. “This follows allegations of India’s involvement in the killing of a Canadian Sikh leader earlier this year. The Modi government had labelled both critics (Pannun and Nijjar) as terrorists.”

Jim Risch, ranking member of the committee and a Republican Senator from Idaho, also referred to the US allegations against India at the beginning of his opening comments.

“Governments who have gotten away with silencing dissent inside their own country are now trying to stifle free speech around the world, including here in the United States. Just last week, the Department of Justice, who the Chairman referred to, unsealed an indictment alleging an Indian government official engaged in a plot to assassinate a US citizen in New York City,” said Risch.

Michael Abramowitz, who heads the non-profit organisation Freedom House in Washington DC, said while deposing before the committee that the US should not hesitate to raise this issue directly at the highest levels with those countries perpetrating transnational repression, even when those perpetrators are close partners such as Saudi Arabia and India.

“We often say we’re the oldest democracy in the world and India is the largest democracy in the world. This is not the behaviour of a respectable democracy,” Tim Kaine, a Democrat Senator and a member of the committee, said during the hearing.

Kaine, however, noted that New Delhi’s reaction to the US allegations was “a little bit more reasonable” contrary to its reaction to the accusations by Canada.

New Delhi launched a probe in the wake of the allegation by Washington DC that an official of the Government of India had engaged Nikhil Gupta, an Indian arrested from the Czech Republic by the US authorities, to hire a hitman to kill the secessionist Sikhs for Justice leader in New York. It had earlier dismissed the allegation by Trudeau’s Government in Ottawa about its role in the killing of Nijjar, who had been wanted for terrorism in India.

Trudeau’s allegation triggered a diplomatic row, with both sides expelling each other’s diplomats and issuing tit-for-tat travel advisories. India called Canada a safe haven for terrorists and suspended issuing visas for Canadians. It, however, recently restarted issuing certain categories of visas for the citizens of Canada. New Delhi also made Ottawa downsize its high commission in the national capital and its consulates in other cities, leading to the departure of 41 diplomats of Canada.