The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) alleged that Indian government ‘agents’ were collaborating with the Lawrence Bishnoi gang to spread terror on Canadian soil. The allegation came hours after India withdrew its diplomats from Canada amid a crisis in the relations between the two countries.
The Canadian allegations, sans evidence, come at a time when jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi is in the news for his alleged involvement in the murder of politician Baba Siddique in Mumbai.
“What we have seen is the use of organised crime elements, and it’s been publicly attributed to one organised crime gang in particular the Bishnoi group is connected to the agents of India,” RCMP Assistant Commissioner Brigitte Gaubin said in a press conference in Ottawa on Monday
Bishnoi, 31 is a gangster from Punjab and currently lodged in the Sabarmati Central jail of Gujarat. Mumbai police suspect that Bishnoi was behind the killing of Baba Siddique, a three-time MLA fromMaharashtra who was killed in Mumbai on Saturday.
Gaubin’s statement came after Canada’s charge that Indian High Commissioner Sanjay Verma and other diplomats are ‘persons of interest’ linked to the investigation of Kahlistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada last year.
Earlier, the Washington Post said in a report, quoting Canadian officials, that theNijjar’s killingwas part of a broader violent campaign targeting Indian dissidents, allegedly directed by a senior Indian official and an operative from India’s intelligence agency. Canadian authorities, the report claimed, based these claims on intercepted communications from India and other new information.
Lawrence Bishnoi gang
The report also said that India was using the Lawrence Bishnoi gang for such operations and alleged that Indian diplomats in Canada gather intelligence on suspected Khalistani separatists, which is then passed to RAW (Research and Analysis Wing), India’s intelligence agency, to help identify targets for attacks carried out by the Bishnoi-led criminal syndicate, which reportedly has a strong presence in Canada.
India on Monday summoned Canada’s Charge d’Affaires after the Ministry of External Affairs said it “received a diplomatic communication from Canada” over the 2023 killing of Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Canada’s top diplomat, Stewart Wheeler, reached the ministry’s headquarters around 7 pm on Monday.
The relations between India and Canada came under severe strain following Justin Trudeau’s allegations about India’s hand in Nijjar killing in September 2023.
Nijjar was shot dead in Surrey, British Columbia in June last year. India rejected Trudeau’s charges as “absurd”.