India calls the accusation “absurd” and condemns Canada for connecting a minister to schemes that target Sikhs.
India formally denounced on Saturday the Canadian government’s claim that Amit Shah, the country’s influential Home Minister, had directed the persecution of Sikh activists within Canada, describing it as “absurd and baseless.”The Canadian government has been under growing fire from New Delhi, which has long been concerned about Sikh separatist organizations, for allegedly allowing separatists from a once-strong movement to establish an independent Sikh nation known as Khalistan.”
The ridiculous and unfounded references made to the Union Home Minister of India are strongly condemned by the Government of India,” India’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters on Saturday.
Major repercussions for bilateral relations
Members of Parliament on the national security committee were informed on Tuesday by David Morrison, Canada’s deputy foreign affairs minister, that he had verified Shah’s identity to The Washington Post, which initially broke the story.
How Canada found out about Shah’s alleged involvement was not disclosed by Morrison. India outlawed Nijjar, a local leader of the Khalistan cause. India declared him a terrorist in 2020 and was pursuing his arrest at the time of his passing on suspicion of being involved in an assault on a Hindu priest in India.
For almost thirty years, he resided in Canada, where around two percent of the population is Sikh.
The Indian minister who has been charged with criminal conspiracy in Canada, Amit Shah, is who?
Amit Shah, the interior minister of India, has been Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s closest aide for decades and is viewed as his tough-minded persona and possible successor. He has been charged by Canada of masterminding schemes to attack Sikh separatists in that nation.
Though the dispute has resulted in the expulsion of diplomats from both nations, India has denied any involvement in the 2023 murder of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada and the purported targeting of other dissidents there.
The 60-year-old Shah is regarded by many political observers as India’s most powerful politician after Modi. The two Hindu nationalists have collaborated in national and local administrations for over 20 years, beginning in their home state of Gujarat.
Most people believe Shah will succeed Modi if he quits power. Modi gave a brief remark at his first press conference as prime minister in India in 2019 but declined to answer any questions, pointing to Shah, the leader of the ruling party at the time, who was seated next to him.
Shah is well-known for his campaign tactics, which have helped Modi’s nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) win elections all throughout the nation and rise from near-obscurity to political prominence. He was appointed chairman of the important interior or Home Affairs ministry by Modi in 2019.
According to the report, he was wrongfully accused of being involved in the extrajudicial execution of a “dreaded terrorist” in 2010 while serving as Gujarat’s state home minister.
He resigned and was imprisoned for three months. In 2014, a judge cleared him. According to his website, Shah has also played a key role in permitting non-Muslims from nearby nations to become citizens of India and in 2019 abolishing the semi-autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir, the country’s sole Muslim majority state at the time.
In an interview in 2016, Shah stated that he has worked for the BJP and its linked parties for nearly his whole adult life, except for a brief period when he sold plastic tubing. He has earned a reputation as an unyielding Hindu hardliner.
Following targeted operations against suspected extremist sites in Pakistan in 2016 and 2019 in retaliation for attacks on Indian troops at the time, Shah told a conference in 2021 that India was pursuing a “nation first” strategy under Modi.