Two senior officials in Canada’s Justin Trudeau government have admitted leaking intelligence and sensitive information targeting India to the US newspaper The Washington Post.
Trudeau’s national security and intelligence adviser Natalie DeRowan told a parliamentary committee that a senior official in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government was involved in the plot to attack Nijar, the Globe reported.
DeRowan said he did not have the prime minister’s approval to leak the confidential information. Actually leaking confidential information is part of the communication strategy. He and Canada’s Deputy Foreign Minister David Morrison secured a major U.S. newspaper’s coverage of Ottawa’s ongoing diplomatic spat between India and Canada.
He said that the Prime Minister’s Office paid full attention to this communication strategy. At the same time, the Washington Post reported on October 13 that Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval secretly met with the Canadian National Security Agency in Singapore.
A parliamentary committee reprimanded DeLovin and Morrison, asking why Trudeau, his cabinet ministers and the RCMP did not make the information public instead of turning it over to the newspaper.
Trudeau accused India for the first time in Parliament last year
Last year, during a speech in Parliament, Justin Trudeau accused India of killing Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Since then, diplomatic tensions between India and Canada have increased. Since then, relations between India and Canada have been rocky. India also accuses Trudeau and his party of using vote-bank politics to woo Khalistani factions.
In January this year, Canada’s former national security adviser Jody Thomas said that India was cooperating with Canada to investigate the Nijar murder case.
Nijar was murdered last year
Nijjar was shot dead outside a Gurudwara in Surrey, Canada, in June last year. Nijjar is a Khalistani terrorist. He is the leader of the Khalistan Tigers. He was living in Canada for the past few years and was instigating Khalistan terrorism against India from there.
Over the past year, Nijjar has become a bigger headache for Indian investigative agencies as he began providing logistics and funding to overseas operatives of Lawrence Bishnoi’s gang, intelligence sources said.
When Trudeau visited India in 2018. At that time, the then Chief Minister of Punjab Amarinder Singh submitted a list of Khalistani terrorists to him, and Nijar’s name was included in it. In 2020, the federal interior ministry declared Nijjar a terrorist. In 2010, an FIR was registered against him during a bomb blast outside a temple in Patiala. Police want him on multiple counts, including inciting violence and promoting terrorist activities.
India has declared Hardeep Singh Nijjar a terrorist. The NIA also announced a reward of Rs 10 lakh on him.
