Front Burner - Detailing India’s alleged global criminal conspiracy

Episode Date: October 21, 2024

The allegations from the RCMP and the federal government last week are nothing short of explosive: That agents of the Indian government had been involved in “widespread violence” against Canadians on Canadian soil.But these kinds of allegations aren’t just coming out of Canada. High-level agents within the Indian government have allegedly been linked to assassination attempts, surveillance and harassment in the US, Pakistan, Germany, the UK and Australia. Many of the targets are Sikh activists in the Indian diaspora, who had sought exile abroad.We’re joined by Greg Miller an investigative foreign correspondent for the Washington Post, and Gerry Shih, the Washington Post’s India bureau chief, to talk about what their reporting into India’s campaign of “transnational repression” has revealed.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. The allegations from the RCMP and the federal government last week were nothing short of explosive. That agents of the Indian government have been involved in widespread violence against Canadians on Canadian soil. The claims aren't limited to India's purported involvement in the assassination of Sikh independence activist

Hardeep Singh Nidger outside of Suri Gurdwara last year. As we talked about on the show last week, the RCMP and the federal government are also accusing the Indian government of playing a role in numerous other cases of homicide, extortion, and coercion across Canada. India has forcefully rejected these claims. But these kind of allegations aren't just coming out of Canada. High-level agents within the Indian government have allegedly been linked to assassination attempts, surveillance, and harassment

in the U.S., Pakistan, Germany, the U.K., and Australia. Many of the targets are Sikh activists in the Indian diaspora who had sought exile abroad. Over the past year, we've covered this story in bits and pieces. But today, what we wanted to do is really pull it all together for you. Because what these allegations amount to on a global level is what some experts are calling one of the world's most aggressive campaigns of transnational repression, violence, and intimidation against India's own citizens, often dissidents, in other countries' sovereign territory.

I'm speaking to two journalists who have led some of the most consequential reporting on the story. Greg Miller is an investigative foreign correspondent for The Washington Post, and Jerry Shee is the Post's India bureau chief. I want to thank you both for being here today. And Greg, I'll start with you if you don't mind. So these new allegations over the past week out of Canada, both publicly from the RCMP and the Trudeau government, as well as from Canadian officials that you have been interviewing, what do they add to the picture that you and your team already had of what was going on in this broader story? You know, I think that they tell us that this is a much more extensive campaign in Canada and a much more involved operation in India than we had known previously. obviously, the killing of a single individual, but targeted harassment, attacks, violence,

threats against many, many other Sikhs in Canada, and the use of India's diplomatic missions in Canada as sort of a base of intelligence collection on this community. And then in India, you know, it really helps us, I think, understand how this operation sort of fits together. You have, as we just said, Indian government officials in Canada sending information about potential targets back to Delhi. You have that information being routed through India's security services, including its intelligence service, and then through a connection to a criminal syndicate that has a large presence in Canada. India orchestrates attacks and threats against individuals. You know, one of the questions has been, is this going to go into

Modi's inner circle? How high up in the Indian government does the responsibility for these operations reach? So the allegations from Canada were really interesting because they included the mention of a very senior Indian official who was being mentioned by Indian officials in Canada. When they were caught talking about this, texting about these operations, they made clear that this was all cleared from high levels of the Indian government. And in our reporting, we were able to surface the name that they were alluding to, and that was Amit Shah. Jerry, can you just explain to our audience a bit about who Amit Shah is and why this is

such a big deal? Sure. Amit Shah, of course, is widely considered to be essentially the second most powerful man in India behind the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Mr. Shah, as the Home Minister who is in charge of domestic security, wasn't really sort of in the frame in terms of, as a target of suspicion of people who've been following this case, of foreign government officials who've been investigating it. At least he wasn't somebody who sort of, you know, was widely seen as a potential suspect who was involved. Now, the new Canadian allegations, at least that have been made to us, are incredibly explosive precisely because of Mr. Shah's proximity to Mr. Modi. He is seen as the prime minister's longtime political confidant. He's seen as essentially the political genius who sort of directs all of their political campaigns.

He's also a very controversial character within India. He's often seen as somebody who sort of is ruthless in the oppression of the BJP's political rivals. He has a checkered criminal history as well. He was investigated while he was a senior official in the state of Gujarat for possible involvement in at least two murders. And so these allegations made by the Canadian officials have been absolutely explosive here in India. And just tell me a little bit more about the reaction that you're seeing in India. Right. It's, you know, let's just say that relations with Canada, which have already been very rocky for the last year or so since Prime Minister Trudeau made

his allegations in Parliament, now they've basically cratered. You have media outlets that are close to the Indian government come out and say that, you know, this basically means the end of diplomatic relations with Canada. Even before some of these things came into public view over the weekend. This is a week ago. There were already warnings coming out of the Indian government saying that if Canada were to proceed with making some of their allegations public,

there would be serious repercussions. And of course, we've seen the mutual expulsion of diplomats the last couple of days. This is something that's not going to be repaired anytime soon. I want to come back to that in a little bit. But first, I want to go through some examples with you both, some examples that you've reported on from other countries and just kind of pull some threads together here for our listeners. So the biggest case outside Canada was this foiled assassination plot last year against a Sikh activist in New York. And we did a whole episode on this. But Greg, could you just briefly recap that story and how the Indian government has allegedly been implicated in that case?

Sure, of course. So this is a case that actually has a lot of parallels with the Najjar assassination or killing in Canada, except that in this case, this was an unsuccessful operation for the Indians. It involved their main intelligence service, the research and analysis wing, working through criminal syndicates and a middleman in an attempt to hire a hitman in New York to kill an associate, actually, of Najjar, another leader of a Sikh separatist organization named PANUN. PANUN is the general counsel at Sikhs for Justice, an advocacy group calling for an independent state carved out of India called Khalistan.

India calls him a terrorist and accused him of threatening Air India passengers in a recent video. Do not fly Air India. The New York-based lawyer insists he was calling for an airline boycott. The plot was extremely shocking in the idea that India would mount an assassination attempt on U.S. soil, caught U.S. officials completely off guard. It really derailed or damaged the Biden administration's attempt to cultivate closer ties with India. Ultimately, it didn't succeed because as ambitious as this plot was, there were also very shoddy aspects in terms of tradecraft. So the Indians turned to someone

who has been charged in the United States. And according to those charging documents, his attempt to hire a hitman involved immediately turning to a drug enforcement agency informant unbeknownst to him. So he's trying to hire somebody to carry out this killing. He ends up turning to a law enforcement informant in the United States. Even then,ant in the United States. Even then, it took the United States a bit of time to figure out that this wasn't just a criminal hit that they had stumbled into, but to trace it back to India and to back to its security services. And we're still, as you saw, new charges landing just the other day dealing with the fallout from this. And just tell me a little bit more about those charges. The other day, it was an indictment,

right, that was unsealed by the U.S. Department of Justice? And what happened there? It was an unsealed indictment, a new indictment. It sort of supersedes the previous indictment. Previously, the United States had only charged the alleged middleman in this operation named Gupta. And that was in part to try to contain the fallout from this case in the broader relationship with India. There were arguments inside the Biden administration about whether to charge, whether to accuse the Indian government and an Indian intelligence officer whom the United States had identified. Early on, they decided not to do that, but they've become increasingly frustrated with India's own internal investigations and the progress of its vow to reach some level of

accountability here. So the United States, just a few days ago, brought charges against an intelligence officer in the Indian government. In a statement, the U.S. Justice Department said that the 39-year-old Vikas Yadav had contacted Nikhil Gupta, an alleged arms dealer now in U.S. custody, to plan the murder of Pannun. And so for the first time, the United States is directly charging an Indian government official. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection.

Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's

because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Jerry, in what other countries has the Indian government been accused of having links to hom to speak about homicides maybe a bit much, but certainly, you know, for the last at least 10 years, there have been several Western countries, allies of the United States and Canada, as well as countries such as Pakistan, who have credibly sort of made allegations of the Indian intelligence agencies increasingly aggressive actions to either spy on the Sikh community or to carry out threats. A number of Indian diplomats and staff belonging to the Indian intelligence agency's role and intelligence bureau have been found involved in coordinating terrorist and subversive activities in Pakistan under the guise of diplomatic assignments.

There have been stories in Australia of the intelligence agency there, as well as Indian diplomats based in Canberra and other Australian cities, pressuring the local Sikh government. There have been similar allegations made in the UK by British security officials. There have been lawsuits filed in Germany and indictments filed against agents of the Indian intelligence agency who have similarly spied on the Sikh community there. So, you know, essentially this picture has been rapidly unfolding in the last couple of years of an Indian intelligence agency that's increasingly ambitious, even if they don't always pull off what they're trying to do. But this is an agency that's increasingly expanding its footprint around the world and is increasingly ramping up many of its operations. But I have to say for your audience, it's important to note that Canada,

you know, really stands out. Canada has the world's largest sick population outside India. Canada appears to be where India and Modi's government have concentrated a large part of their efforts, a large operational effort to repress or attack or intimidate Sikhs and to kill in some cases. And so it's a sprawling campaign. And I think I would just say that, add that it just sort of reflects the India's sense of itself under Modi. They feel entitled to do this. They are frustrated or angry, and they accuse other countries of coddling an entity that they regard as a terrorist organization. And they are taking matters into their own hands, and they're doing so partly because they don't believe they will have to pay a significant price because they

are too important to countries like the United States. And Jerry, just an additional piece of context for our listeners. This is something that we've talked about on the show before, but I think it's important for us to just talk about it again here. So we've been talking about how the targets have been largely Sikh activists, though not exclusively. And just could you explain to me or elaborate for me, why is this group such a target of the Modi government? Sure. We have to remember, you know, there is a long and very complicated and troubled history between the Indian government and many of these Sikh separatists who found a home in Canada. You know, this was the so-called Khalistan movement, which is essentially a Sikh nationalist

sort of secessionist movement that wants to carve a Sikh homeland out of what is, you know, Indian Punjab. It marked the end of British rule, but the partition of India displaced millions of Hindus, Muslims, and the smaller community of displaced millions of Hindus, Muslims, and the smaller community of Sikhs who became refugees in their own land. In all, some 10 million people were uprooted from their homes. India, home for the Hindu majority. Pakistan, created for Muslims. But Punjab, overlapping the new border, left Sikhs without the independent state they wanted.

border left six without the independent state they wanted. This movement has existed for a long time. Sort of militancy really became an issue within India in the 1980s. It took an entire battalion of Indian troops backed by tanks and rockets to storm the Sikh Golden Temple in Amritsar. Bloodletting began in earnest on the 5th of June 1984. Codenamed Operation Blue Star, the Indian army, on orders from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, attacked the Golden Temple. Killing hundreds of what India said were heavily armed militants. It was an outrage for Sikhs. We are now at war with India. The one event that really stands out was the 1985 bombing

by Canadian-based Sikh militants that killed 329 people. Air India Flight 182 was en route from Vancouver to London and India on June 23, 1985. It exploded in the skies over Ireland. In the wake of that bombing, India accused Canada of not carrying out sort of, you know, proper and sufficient investigations and doing enough to arrest and charge many of who India suspected to be behind it. And so since then, since the 1980s, the Indian government has really viewed militancy as one of its foremost sort of security concerns. And basically, over the last 30 years, it has increasingly deployed resources to monitor

many of these elements overseas. And essentially, what we're seeing today is a direct function of that. In Indian government's eyes, these people are terrorists. Many of the people that we've seen targeted have been listed on Indian government's sort of most wanted lists where they've been designated as terrorists, even if foreign governments have said that the Indians simply have not provided sufficient proof of that. provided sufficient proof of that. And Indian officials have often said, look, you know, if the U.S. has been able to, you know, carry out operations to assassinate the likes of Osama bin Laden, then we as a rising sort of, you know, global power certainly have, you know, it's our prerogative to be able to do the same to pursue our security interests. There is one thing I wanted to ask you both about. So, of course, as you said, the majority of these targets are Sikh activists, but not all of them. So as far as we know, for example, the Sikh singer A.P.

Dhillon had his house on Vancouver Island sprayed with bullets last month. The video has scorched its way across the internet. An attacker using a phone and a gun outside a house on the outskirts of Victoria. Very intense bullet sounds. Then I went to the kitchen window to overlook AP's home and I saw the truck on fire. The truck set on fire. And there are now reports that the Indian government may have been linked to that attack. And I don't want to speculate too much here, but the RCMP commissioner here talked about how these attacks are to make it seem like people connected to the broader Sikh community, not just Sikh activists, are dangerous or tied to dangerous people? And I would put that question to either of you, whoever wants to field it.

I think that's possible. I mean, I think that this campaign has multiple dimensions and multiple perceived advantages to Modi and his government. I think there's a big domestic political aspect here where the Modi government, I mean, Modi himself came to power as a champion of Hindu nationalism. And these attacks, the reaction that is generated by the Indian press when these attacks are disclosed is really amazing to behold. And so, you know, it's, I would say one other thing as well, like the, we don't know whether all of the, there are lots of attacks that look suspicious in Canada and elsewhere that may involve the Indian government. I think it's a little unclear.

We haven't, I'm not sure there have been, intelligence agencies have reached firm conclusions in some of these cases. But it's also possible that, you know, when the way the Indian government has gone about this, the way its intelligence services worked here, has been using proxies, criminal syndicates, criminal networks, criminal gangs, essentially. That can lead to operational mistakes, but it could also lead to violence against unintended or uninvolved individuals. of desperation emerging in Canada, a level of concern over how much violence they were attributing to India, and a real interest in trying to convince Modi officials, his subordinates, to stop it. You know, Canadian police have enough to worry about without violence being exported by India targeting Sikh individuals across multiple cities in the country.

Yeah, I would just say that what Greg said is an absolutely key point, that there has been political dividends for the Indian government to carry out some of these international campaigns. When India's sort of alleged terrorists have been killed in countries like Pakistan, have been killed in countries like Pakistan or in countries like Canada, in fact, sometimes the news comes out within hours or even minutes of the killing taking place. Pro-government media outlets within India are often leaked this information and they report it sort of with, I would characterize it as kind of a wink and a nod saying, hmm, we wonder who did this, but whoever did this must be doing great work for our national security. We've seen Modi administration officials on the campaign trail during the national elections earlier this year sort of openly, when they were accused of carrying out overseas assassinations, say things like, well, you know, this is the new India. Modi himself said this at a campaign rally, that this is the new India that even our enemies know that will go

into their homes and kill. We've brought up the spy agency a few times during this conversation, which is basically, I guess, India's equivalent of the CIA, if you think that's fair. They have been heavily implicated in these cases. They have been connected to attacks in Pakistan for quite some time. But I know that for a long time, Raw wasn't really seen as a major player on the global intelligence scene. It was mostly focused on regional conflicts

with its neighbors. And Jerry, how has the agency been reshaped under Modi and I guess his, you know, this strategy that he has? Sure. The Indian intelligence agency, of course, you know, sort of South Asia was always, for decades, their stomping ground. Their ability in South Asia certainly was very formidable.

They were involved in smuggling weapons and fueling insurgencies in Bangladesh, carrying, attacks and espionage in Pakistan. They were very, very well sourced and very capable in Afghanistan as well. And, you know, some people within the intelligence agency have said, you know, we were so good and sort of so dominant kind of in the spy games within our own neighborhood that perhaps, you know, we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into, you know, when it came to other regions with sort of, you know, more formidable counterintelligence capabilities. And just to be clear, you know, we talked about how Modi has talked on the campaign trail of, you know, killing his enemies,

but the Indian government is denying all of this. They're forcefully denying all of this. I think that they're, you know, it's interesting. I think that there's a more, a slightly more complicated answer than that. I think there's like two tracks here. Mostly they deny it and sort of with a wink though, as, as, as Jerry pointed out, right? A lot of domestic signaling. Yeah, this is us. But then when officials from Canada or Australia come calling and try to confront the Modi government on this, they get stiff-armed, stonewalled, denied, denials, etc. But they're trying to play a little more complicated game with the United States, where they initially denied any connection to the plot against Panoon. But then when the United States, through officials from President Biden on down,

started confronting their counterparts in India, India sort of has not by any stretch come clean about this, but has launched what it says will be a productive and meaningful and serious internal investigation. And we'll try to get to the bottom of this. And it's trying to give the United States some sense that there will be somebody may end up being held accountable here. You know, how that's going has been a big question. You know, how that's going has been a big question. The American frustration with that and American concern that that will end up being a whitewash sort of mission is partly the reason that we saw new charges brought this past week. Okay.

I didn't realize it had been so nuanced. That's really interesting to hear your answer to that. One more question for you then, Greg. Why do you think Canada has up until now chosen a much more aggressive approach than the United States has? Well, that's a really good question. And I think it's, you know, in my conversations with senior Canadian officials, I'm not sure that's the approach they necessarily wanted. I think in some cases, this was all that they had to work with. had to work with. As I said, they would rather have resolved this, I think, possibly more quietly with India. If India were willing to own up to it, take it seriously and put a stop to it, I think

that's what Canada's main objectives are. But you can't get there with a government in conversations with a government that is denying it, that is saying no, literally told Canadian officials in a meeting, a secret meeting in Singapore this past week, look, whatever, it doesn't really matter how much evidence you bring to us. We are going to deny this no matter what. That doesn't give Canada much to work with except to sort of try to call this out publicly, except to expose India and flush out as much as it can about these allegations and hope that broader international pressure will bring something to bear on this. Jerry, Greg, thank you very much for being here. We're really grateful that you're covering this and for having us on.

Thanks a lot, Jamie. It's been a pleasure to speak with you. That's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.