Sanjay Kumar Verma, the Indian High Commissioner to Canada, has said New Delhi is cooperating in the American investigation into the thwarted plot to murder Sikhs For Justice leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun because of the quality of information – which was “legally presentable” – being shared on the matter.
Verma also noted that the Canadian side had not provided enough to take the matter forward.
“The investigation in case of the US as far as I know and understand … is at a much (more) advanced stage, and therefore, I presume, that there would be better information shared with India,” the High Commissioner said.
He also told Vassy Kapelos, the host of CTV’s Question Period in an interview that was aired Sunday, that being “asked to co-operate” presumed guilt.
“…if you look at the typical criminal terminology, when someone asks us to cooperate, which means that you have already been convicted, and you better cooperate. So, we took it in a very different interpretation. But we always said that if there is anything specific and relevant, and communicated to us, we will look into it. And that had been said from day one. So, we have never said, of course, we have not used the word cooperate, because we feel that’s humiliating.”
The Canadian National Security Advisor, Jody Thomas spent over a week during two visits to New Delhi ahead of the September G 20 Summit pursuing the Canadian charge that there was possible involvement of Indian security agencies in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey outside a Gurudwara in June.
Asked, “Are you telling me that no specificity in what was shared with the Indian government by the national security adviser? That not a single specific allegation was presented to the Indian government and asked for cooperation?”, Verma responded, “So conversations took place. But we needed something specific and relevant to go back to our legal authorities to seek permission to do investigation that we would have wanted to do. So, until the time that those kinds of inputs are not there, in a country of rule of law, it will not be possible for us to move forward on the investigations.”
(The article is published under a mutual content partnership arrangement between The Free Press Journal and Connected to India)