US should not be part of Trudeau’s claim linking India to Nijjar’s killing, says American expert

Washington, Sep 23: Terming as “shameless” and “cynical” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s claim of Indian agents’ involvement in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, an American expert has urged the US not to play into the hands of people who are looking at the Khalistani movement as a movement for ego, profit and politics.
Tensions flared between India and Canada early this week following Trudeau’s explosive allegations of the “potential” involvement of Indian agents in the killing of Khalistani extremist Nijjar on his country’s soil on June 18 in British Columbia.
India had designated Nijjar as a terrorist in 2020. India has angrily rejected the allegations as “absurd” and “motivated” and expelled a senior Canadian diplomat in a tit-for-tat move to Ottawa’s expulsion of an Indian official over the case. Participating in a panel discussion at the Hudson Institute think-tank, Michael Rubin, Senior Fellow at American Enterprise Institute, claimed Trudeau is playing into the hands of people who are looking at the Khalistani movement as a movement of ego and profit. Nijjar, the chief of the banned Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF), was one of India’s most-wanted terrorists who carried a cash reward of Rs 10 lakh on his head. What is striking about Trudeau’s “shameless action and cynical action” is that while he’s making a statement now, the killing of Karima Baloch that was carried out allegedly with Pakistani assistance is a police matter and has not been taken to the Prime Minister’s Office, Rubin said.
Baloch, a Pakistani human rights activist found murdered in Toronto. Canadian police took the lead on the case. There were suggestions of the Pakistani government’s complicity.
“So, the question then becomes why the discrepancy if not populist political posturing? … That might help Justin Trudeau in the long term but that’s not what leadership is. We really need our politicians on both sides of the aisle here and in Canada, (there is a) need to be much more responsible because they’re playing with fire,” he said.
It seems, Rubin said, that some outside hands are trying to revive the Khalistan movement. “I don’t think it will work,” he said, adding he would not want the US to give legitimacy to this sort of “cynical manoeuvres by outside powers”.”Sikhs in India are not in favour of Khalistan. Today, Sikhs are in the Indian Army defending the nation, whether it’s against China or Pakistan,” he said. (PTI)