New Delhi: The US and Canadian agencies have missed that IFS officers do not get involved in any intelligence activity. Their service rules prohibit them from doing so.
The recent actions taken by the United States and Canada in the Khalistani terrorist facilitator Gurpatwant Singh Pannun case, including the public disclosure of alleged closed-door meetings among top security officials and the issuance of arrest warrants against Indian officials, have raised concern in India’s intelligence community. Former senior officers have described these decisions as “foolish” and potentially “detrimental” in the long run.
Sources have also told The Sunday Guardian that a major diplomatic confrontation was averted at the last moment after it emerged that some US officials had planned to arrest a top official who had recently retired from a sensitive post, who they allege was involved in the Pannun case. The said officer was to fly to the US for personal reasons, but was made aware of the intention of these US officials, after which he aborted his travel just hours before boarding the flight.
It is pertinent to mention here that the US media, quoting documents and inputs provided by Washington-based government officials to them, have blamed former Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) chief Samant Goel for this entire assassination plot.
Earlier last week, Canada had named the Indian High Commissioner to Ottawa, Sanjay Verma, and other diplomats as “persons of interest” in the investigation related to the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. In response, India withdrew the high commissioner and other targeted diplomats and officials because the “Trudeau government’s actions endangered their safety” in an “atmosphere of extremism and violence.” The other officials were posted at the high commission in Ottawa and consulates in Toronto and Vancouver.
The Canadian authorities had asked New Delhi to waive diplomatic immunity for six of its personnel so they could be questioned about “a number of violent incidents targeting members of the South Asian community, particularly the Sikh community, in many cities across the country.”
When India refused to waive immunity, the six diplomats were served notices of expulsion.
On 14 October, Trudeau, in a televised press conference, along with Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions, and Intergovernmental Affairs Dominic LeBlanc, and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly, gave details about his interaction with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Laos on the fringes of the ASEAN summit. He also spoke about the 12 October meeting between the countries’ national security advisors, Ajit Doval of India and Nathalie Drouin of Canada in Singapore.
Additionally, LeBlanc told the media that he was in touch with US Attorney General Merrick Garland and that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the US’ FBI were cooperating in this matter.
Recently, Justin Trudeau, who was testifying before the country’s foreign interference inquiry, said Canada only provided intelligence and no proof before publicly accusing India of killing Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Canada also shared this “intelligence” with the Five Eyes group, an intelligence-sharing group composed of Canada, the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand, which is mostly focused on snooping on communications.
A government official, who retired from a high position in one of India’s intelligence agencies and is regarded as one of the most knowledgeable and experienced in the field of counter-espionage and counter-intelligence, told The Sunday Guardian that it appears that Canada and possibly other members of Five Eyes snooped on Indian diplomats, which is a clear violation of the Vienna Convention.
According to him, New Delhi should take this issue of snooping on its diplomats very seriously. In addition to raising it in the appropriate forums, the government should also ensure that the counter-measures installed at Indian embassies, offices in New Delhi, and the telecommunications devices used by top ministers and officials in India to prevent snooping are functioning properly.
He said that snooping of South-Asian diplomats by Western countries’ agencies is well-documented, but using the content for public consumption was happening for the first time.
“By demanding the waiver of diplomatic immunity for Indian diplomats, both Washington and Ottawa, who are working in close coordination, have presented themselves as fools to the entire world. India should not take this lying down. Do American and Canadian officials want India to hand over its officials to their law enforcement agencies? Has this happened anywhere else? Has the CIA handed over its officials to Pakistan or to Afghanistan? This has never happened anywhere. It is a stupid demand. Even if it is assumed for a minute that this was a sanctioned operation (referring to US allegations), the said operation was done to protect Indian interests. And it would not have happened if American and Canadian authorities had taken note of repeated concerns raised by Indian agencies to control Khalistani terror groups,” he said.
On Thursday, just a day before the hearing in the case of Nikhil Gupta, another Indian national accused in the case was to begin, a US court issued an arrest warrant against Vikash Yadav, who was presented as the main executioner in the alleged Pannun assassination plot. According to the indictment, Yadav was a member of the Central Reserve Police Force and was employed with India’s intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW). The said official, as per the US State Department press release quoting Indian officials, has now been removed from service.
Curiously, the US officials themselves accepted that Pannun is someone who was calling for a state to secede from India.
The same indictment document described Pannun as “a vocal critic of the Government of India and leads a US-based organization that advocates for the secession of Punjab, a state in northern India that is home to a large population of Sikhs, an ethno-religious minority group in India. The victim has publicly called for some or all of Punjab to secede from India and establish a Sikh sovereign state called Khalistan.”
According to another top official, members of the intelligence community, given the close and tight circle of friends they have, sometimes engage in light-hearted banter, loose talk and gossip. It is likely that the Five Eyes members picked up such banter and termed it “actionable intelligence.”
“Canadian and American agencies have again proven that they don’t understand the Asian psyche of loose talk, gossip, and light banter between officers. In this case, they took it as credible intelligence. However, intelligence officers, including Indians, are not so unprofessional that they will discuss real and hard facts on open lines; there are secure ways to communicate on these topics,” said the official who headed one of the most sensitive desks before retiring.
Another point that the US and Canadian agencies have missed, sources said, is the fact that officials of the Indian Foreign Service are never involved in any intelligence activity; their service rules prohibit them from doing so.
Sources said that it was clear that these actions were being pushed by the US and Canadian administrations with a political motive, as they could have easily been resolved through back channel talks without making everything public, as the US and Canadian officials have been doing.