India Calls Out Washington Post’s “Hit Team” Claim In The US “Irresponsible”

According to a Washington Post article, US intelligence services concluded that the killing of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun was authorized by the head of India’s espionage agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) at the time

New Delhi: The Indian government has refuted claims made by The Washington Post that an Indian intelligence officer hired a hit squad to kill US-based Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, calling the claims “unwarranted and unsubstantiated”.
According to a report released on Sunday, US intelligence agencies concluded that Samant Goel, the head of India’s spy agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) at the time, gave his approval for the plan to assassinate Pannun.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Randhir Jaiswal, stated in a statement that “the report in question makes unwarranted and unsubstantiated imputations on a serious matter.”

“There is an ongoing investigation of the high-level committee set up by the government of India to look into the security concerns shared by the US government on networks of organised criminals, terrorists, and others,” said Jaiswal.

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“Speculative and irresponsible comments on it are not helpful,” he stated.

In recent decades, India has made it clear that it will hunt down terrorists regardless of where they flee to. According to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, India will cross into Pakistan and execute anyone who tries to cross over after attempting to conduct terrorist activities there.

Mr. Singh made his remarks on April 5 in response to a revelation in the British daily The Guardian that said the Indian government had assassinated 20 individuals in Pakistan since 2020 as part of a larger effort to eradicate terrorists who were residing abroad.

Mr. Singh had declared, “We will enter Pakistan to kill them if they flee to there.” “India always aspires to have positive relationships with its neighbors… However, we won’t spare anyone who repeatedly gives India the evil eye, visits the country, or tries to encourage terrorism,” Mr. Singh stated.

An Indian national was charged by the US Justice Department with involvement in the thwarted assassination attempt. The indictment presented in a federal court in Manhattan claimed that an Indian government employee (referred to as CC-1) recruited Nikhil Gupta, another Indian national, to hire a hitman to carry out the purported assassination of the Sikh Separatist, which was thwarted by US authorities.

Additionally, Canada has claimed that Indian government operatives were complicit in the British Columbian terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s murder. However, India has frequently noted that Canada has allowed radicals who are hostile to India to exist.

“The nexus between organised crime, trafficking, and gun running and extremists at an international level is a serious issue for law enforcement agencies and organisations to consider, and it is precisely for that reason that a high-level committee has been constituted, and we will obviously be guided by its results,” the Middle East Affairs Agency (MEA) stated in December 2023.