The Decibel - Behind Canada’s explosive allegations against India

Episode Date: October 30, 2024

On October 14, the RCMP shared explosive allegations linking Indian government officials to homicides, extortions and coercion committed against Canadians, on Canadian soil. The RCMP said 30 people had been charged so far, and Ottawa announced it was expelling 6 Indian diplomats.  Since the escalation, The Globe has learned the lengths Ottawa and the RCMP went to, to avoid worsening tensions between the countries. The Globe’s Ottawa Bureau Chief, Robert Fife, takes us inside the behind-the-scenes meetings that led to Canada’s escalation, how far up this goes in the Indian government, and what this all means for the future of Canada and India’s relationship. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

Earlier this month, the RCMP alleged that Indian government officials were involved in homicides and extortions within Canada. We reached a point where we felt it was imperative to confront the government of India and inform the public about some very serious findings that have been uncovered through our investigations. The RCMP say 30 people have been charged so far. And Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also announced further action. We will never tolerate the involvement of a foreign government threatening and killing Canadian citizens on Canadian soil.

A deeply unacceptable violation of Canada's sovereignty and of international law. Canada served notices of expulsions to six diplomats and consular officials early this morning. Subsequent to those notices, India announced it would withdraw its officials. But we now know more details about how the Canadian government tried to avoid these escalations and tried to prevent worsening tensions between India and Canada. The Globe's Ottawa Bureau Chief, Robert Fyfe, has been following this story. Today, he takes us behind the scenes of how these events unfolded, how far up this goes in the Indian government,

and what this all means for Canada and India's relationship. I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Bob, thank you so much for being on the show again. Always a pleasure. So earlier this month, Canada and India expelled six diplomats each, with India responding to Canada's initial announcement. How unusual is that, Bob? Oh, it's highly unusual. You may get the occasional instance where a diplomat may be expelled.

It doesn't happen very often. We've had it happen with Russians who have been involved in espionage. And we had it in 2023 after the Globe reported that a Chinese diplomat had been involved in gathering information that could potentially threaten conservative MP Michael Chong and his family in Hong Kong. But it's very, very rare that you get so many diplomats, in this case, not only six diplomats, but one of them was the High Commissioner for India. And you have to remember that India is a member of the Commonwealth, is one of the world's largest democracies. It's not an authoritarian government, where often when we have expulsions, it's usually involved espionage from countries that are authoritarian.

So let's talk about this in a little bit more depth, Bob. What exactly has the RCMP linked the Indian government to? They've been linked to three murders in this country of Canadian citizens and also 22 cases of extortion. You have to go back to September of last year when the Prime Minister rose in the House of Commons to say that the June 2023 killing of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Najjar in Surrey, BC, outside a temple, was believed to have been organized by agents of the Indian government. Then that launched into basically an 11-month investigation. And in August, the RCMP went to the government and said, we've got now a clear case of Indian diplomats being deeply involved in two other murders. One of those murders we now know happened in Winnipeg with a Sikh Khalistani who was gunned down in actually two days after the

Prime Minister rose in the House of Commons last year. And some other murder that we do not know about. We know that eight people have been charged with murder, four of them in the case of Mr. Niger. Presumably the other four have been charged in the case of this other individual whose name we still do not know. There has been nobody charged in the case of Mr. Gill, who was the man in Winnipeg who was gunned down. So very, very serious stuff. Like this is not espionage. This is not, you know, calling somebody up and threatening their families. This is murder on Canadian soil. So when they went to the government in August, they said, look, we're really, really worried about the extent of India's involvement in these kind of violent activities. They've been using criminal gangs to carry out these murders.

This is a warning from the RCMP then to the government. violent activities. They've been using criminal gangs to carry out these murders. This is a warning from the RCMP then to the government. The RCMP to the government in August saying, look, we're going to need a hollow government effort to try to stop these activities. And so that's this chain of events that led to the shocking news conference on Thanksgiving Day, where the RCMP commissioner came out and made the allegations and the government then expelled the six diplomats, including the high commissioner. Yeah. And Bob, you mentioned the six separatist state. Khalistan would be the six separatist state. The Khalistani movement is the movement to try to have that state.

Do we know how this allegedly worked, Bob? Like how involved is the RCMP saying these Indian officials are in all of this? Well, we don't know the specific details, but we know that CSIS, our spy service, and the communication security establishment, which is our signals intelligence agency, and the RCMP were able to obtain text messages and other intercepted communications between New Delhi, the six diplomats, as well as crime groups in Canada who were carrying out these activities on behalf of the Indian government. These intercepted communications ended up showing that they came for the Home Affairs Minister, Mr. Amit Shah, who is basically in charge of the police in India. He's in the cabinet. He's involved in a lot of the police activities. There are also some intercepted

communications apparently with Ajit Toval, who is the National Security Advisor for Prime Minister Modi. Mr. Toval used to be the India spy master. He was in charge of India's foreign intelligence service. So this is very, very high level stuff where you now have evidence in terms of intercepted communications that the Indian government was directly involved in carrying out these activities through the six diplomats here in Canada and through a crime group. One of the main crime groups was the Lawrence Bishnal Crime Group, which is a major criminal organization in India. The leader of it, Lawrence Bishnal, is actually in prison and has been there for 20 years, but he has a significant criminal organization in Canada.

And the RCMP are alleging that these people have been used as proxies basically to carry out murders and threats to people who are Khalistanis. Wow. Okay. So of course, in response to Canada expelling six diplomats, India did the same, expelled Canadian diplomats. Bob, what has India said about these accusations from Canada? And I guess I'm wondering about Prime Minister Narendra Modi. What has he said in response to any of this? He hasn't said anything recently, but when the Canadian government, well, the Prime Minister in September of last year made the allegations that India was involved in the killing of Mr. Najjar, he came out and said,

it's not true. India has not had any involvement in any of this. But their stance all along has been to deny, deny, deny, as they did over the allegations on Thanksgiving weekend. They consistently denied. They said that, and they've argued that Mr. Trudeau is playing the sport of politics because there's a large Sikh population in this country and he's playing to them. And that the Canadian government has failed to respect India's request for extradition or to crack down on what they believe are violent separatists who are promoting a separate state in the Punjab, including terrorist financing and all that sort of stuff. The Canadian government's position on this is that, of course, if we have evidence of somebody doing terrorist financing or planning violent acts, we'll charge them. But, you know, what we have so far is free speech.

People can promote separatism as Quebec separatists do. You know, there's no criminal charges for free speech. So Bob, in your recent reporting, you actually learned that Ottawa had attempted to deal with all of this privately. What do we now know happened behind closed doors ahead of these expulsions? So once the RCMP went to the government in August to say, look, we're feeling that this is getting really out of control and we need to stop it. The Canadian government then reached out to say, we would like to go on October the 8th to India. They were not able to get visas to go. And then when they weren't able to go to India,

they said, well, what about meeting people in Washington? Because some Indian officials were going to be going to Washington to meet the Biden administration, which is also dealing with allegations of India government plotting to kill people in the United States. The Indian government showed no interest in doing so. And so the three officials went to Singapore where they met the National Security Advisor to Mr. Modi, and they laid out the case, which I'll go through in a minute or so. But I'll tell you why the timeframe is so tight here, is that in the criminal trial of Mr. Niger, there are four people accused in that, they have to disclose some of the evidence to their counsel. And some of the evidence that they were expected to disclose to them on October the 15th were recordings or transcripts of conversations with an Indian diplomat or Indian diplomats planning the murder

of Mr. Nijjar and communicating with these individuals. So the concern was once we turn that over, it could come out pretty, pretty quickly. So that was the catalyst for that Thanksgiving Day news conference. So that's interesting. So the timing was important there. And even though we haven't seen anything come out in regards to that, these three officials ended up in Singapore trying to meet ahead of this news conference there with Indian officials. Do we know what was talked about there, Bob?

Yes, we do. The Canadian officials offered three options to Mr. Doval. India could waive the diplomatic immunity so the RCMP could question the six diplomats. That was highly unlikely to happen. The other option would be that Ottawa could expel the six. Or the third option was that India could accept an off-ramp, which is the preferred route that the government had hoped India would agree to. In this off-ramp, there was a number of proposals that they laid out to Mr. Duvel in that Singapore meeting. And basically, it went nowhere.

And so when the Canadian government came back, they decided that they would hold the news conference, expel the six diplomats, and the RSMP would lay out its case. And so you know, a lot of this information that I've been given from a source was not information that was ever provided to the Canadian public. The RCMP would only say that there were eight people charged with murder, 22 cases of extortion, and that they have a lot of evidence that Indian diplomats were involved in this and that they had worked with criminal gangs. And he did identify Lawrence Bishnal's gang. So it's a very serious issue. And clearly, I think the Canadian government has tried to be as responsible as it can be in trying to get the Indian government to

find an off-ramp, if I may say so, to try to deal with this issue, stop the activities in Canada, and try to repair relations that are really in the deep freeze. We'll be back in a moment. Bob, I want to come back to something you mentioned a bit earlier about how the U.S. is also dealing with a similar situation. There was a plot to kill someone in New York, and there was actually a committee now established to look into this. So it seems like India is more willing to engage the U.S. on this situation. Canada has not kind of had the same response from India.

How is this playing out differently between India's response to Canada and India's response to America? Well, first of all, the FBI were very quick off the mark to lay attempted murder charges against an Indian national who was attempting to kill Mr. Panu in New York. They were ahead of the game because they knew that this murder for hire plot was underway and that the individual who was trying to arrange the killing of Mr. Panu was actually dealing with an FBI undercover agent. So they were way ahead of everything. And so they have a lot of evidence of India's involvement in that. They have now arrested the person who was trying to do this killing. And because they took it really seriously, like you are sending people to kill in the United States. That's not on.

And so the Indian government under Mr. Modi did set up this inquiries committee that's dealing with the United States. So far already, an Indian official in its intelligence service has been let go. He's denying it had anything to do with this. But the inquiries committee apparently believes that he is the, quote, rogue person who's been involved in this. The American administration really expects some action to be taken on this, but at the same time, they haven't been as vociferous in their criticism of the Modi government because they're allowing the law enforcement and the diplomatic part to take place. But the White House is very concerned that from a geopolitical perspective, they need India to act as a counterweight to China. They don't want to have the kind of diplomatic relations that we have with India, where it's virtually ruptured.

I also want to ask you about something else you reported, Bob, also related to the U.S., about how two senior federal officials briefed the Washington Post with this information that Indian interference operations were happening here before the RCMP actually told the Canadian public about it. So talk to me a little bit about the strategy here. Why would they leak this information to The Washington Post? Well, that was Natalie Duran, the prime minister of national security and intelligence advisor, and Mr. David Morrison, who is the deputy minister of foreign affairs. Look, it made logical sense that they would do so because The Washington Post is a major newspaper.

It's actually done some very good work on this as well. And, you know, it's being read by people in Congress and in the White House and in the U.S. State Department and throughout government. So this was a way to make sure that the Americans understood exactly what India has been doing in Canada, which is not dissimilar from what it has done in the United States. So the idea is that we're kind of looking for maybe the U.S. to stand up for this, and that kind of might actually help us out as well then. Yeah, I think that's completely logical what they were trying to do. I will say this, though, I can't resist it because the prime minister allowed his top

officials to provide this intelligence briefing where some of this would have been classified intelligence, including the text messages and the naming of the Home Affairs Minister, for example, to the Washington Post. And then two days later, he's at the public inquiry into foreign interference. And he said that the leaking of intelligence from national security officials to the Globe and Mail about the extensive strategy of China's interference in our domestic affairs, well, that was criminal. I mean, it's not criminal when it suits my purpose. It's criminal when it embarrasses the government

and forces them to hold a public inquiry. So, Bob, how significantly does the situation affect Canada? Like, how much damage has been caused here? Well, a lot of damage has been caused here. The bonds between India and Canada are pretty significant, given the fact that we have so many Indo-Canadians in this country, and they're great contributors to our society. And we've had a long standing relationship with India for decades, because they're members of the Commonwealth. And, you know, I remember back in when Brian Maroney's days where he, the Indian prime minister at the time, Mr. Gandhi,

were working together hand in glove to fight South African apartheid. So we've had a really good relationship with India. We have wanted over the years, and there'd be many, many efforts over the years to try to get a free trade agreement with India because it is a fast-growing economy. It's a highly educated workforce. The trade between both countries would be quite significant. And given the problems we have with China, Canadian businesses also are trying to defer their efforts to India as well. And so, Bob, is this hurting Canada more than India? I guess I'm wondering how affected India is by these tensions. It's not really affecting India very much. They've got lots of people who

want to trade with them. They don't need Canada. But having said that, when there's a change in government, there may be an opportunity for us to put some of this behind us. You mean a change in government on Canada's side? Our side, and frankly, on the Indian side as well. Because all of this lands at Prime Minister Modi's door. I mean, we know that Indian officials and their intelligence service have been involved in murdering people in Canada and attempting to murder people in the United States. And there's evidence that certainly they've done this in Pakistan, perhaps in Great Britain. We don't know whether other parts of the world. Democracies can't operate like this. You don't go around killing people. There's no way out of this. I don't see...

Relations have been very, very bad between Prime Minister Trudeau and Prime Minister Modi for a long time, even before these violent acts came to light. I don't think you're going to see any warming of relations until Prime Minister Trudeau is gone or Prime Minister Modi is gone. And Modi just got elected, so he's not leaving very soon. And as you know, the clock is ticking on Mr. Trudeau's tenure. So just very lastly here, Bob, what are you watching for next when it comes to this situation? I want to see whether there are additional charges laid and what the court cases will say about who in the Indian government was carrying out these activities, because we still with this in a responsible way, even if they kind of make it up and say, well, there were some rogue elements in our security system that did this.

And, you know, we've let these people go and this will never happen again. That's what I hope will happen, because how can India claim to be a responsible world power when it allows people to go to other countries and kill people. And we've had, for many, many years, a great relationship with India. So that's what I'm hoping to see. But right now, as you and I know, the Modi government is digging in its heels. So we may have to have the Americans pick up the ball for us. Bob, always appreciate you taking the time to be here. Thank you. You're welcome.

That's it for today. I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms. This episode was edited and mixed by Kevin Sexton. Our producers are Madeline White, Michal Stein, and Allie Graham. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Matt Frainer is our managing editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you soon.