Canadian govt has admitted it leaked sensitive information to The Washington Post about the alleged involvement of Indian govt officials and agents in criminal activities in Canada that led to the withdrawal of Indian high commissioner Sanjay Verma and five other diplomats from the country. Canada had said it “expelled” the diplomats after India refused to waive their diplomatic immunity.
Canadian NSA Nathalie Drouin told a parliamentary panel on Tuesday that information was leaked to the newspaper to counter alleged disinformation by India and it was a “strategic decision to engage a respected international news outlet that had already published on the subject to ensure the record was straight”. Canada’s Globe and Mail had carried a report identifying Drouin and deputy foreign minister David Morrison as officials who briefed the newspaper.
One of the allegations mentioned in the Post report was that India’s home minister Amit Shah had authorised attacks on Canadian Sikhs — pro-Khalistani separatists — in the country. Morrison, who was also present at the parliamentary hearing, admitted he had “confirmed” Shah’s alleged involvement to the Post reporter.
He also said he had not on his own shared that information but only confirmed it when the reporter asked him about it. “The journalist called me and asked if it was that person. I confirmed it was that person,” Morrison told the panel, without elaborating.
Morrison had been asked by Raquel Dancho, MP of opposition Conservative Party, who during the hearing raised the issue of Trudeau govt passing on information to the Post.
While there was no official response by India to Canada’s public naming of Shah, govt sources here maintained that these latest assertions by Canadian authorities were again not backed by any evidence. A Reuters report quoted anonymous govt sources as saying Canada’s claim was based on “very weak and flimsy” evidence.
India has maintained since the allegations first surfaced, in the form of a statement made by Canadian PM Justin Trudeau in Parliament last year, about the involvement of Indian officials in a murder-for-hire plot that Ottawa has shared no evidence or actionable information to back its claims.
Canada’s NSA Nathalie Drouin also said Canadian and Indian security officials had met at least seven times since Aug last year and claimed that Canada had “evidence” about the involvement of Indian officials in gathering information through coercion and threats. “This information is then shared with senior levels of the government of India who then direct the commission of serious criminal activities against Indo-Canadians to the kinetic views of the Lawrence Bishnoi organised crime network,” she said. India has already dismissed these allegations as preposterous.