India dismisses Canada's allegation over invite of Khalistani assassin

The government on Wednesday rejected Canada's allegation that rogue elements in India had arranged the invitation for convicted assassin Jaspal Atwal to a reception hosted by Ottawa's envoy to New Delhi during the recent visit of the North American country's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

New Delhi dismissed as "baseless and unacceptable" the allegation by Ottawa that the rogue political elements in India might have had arranged the invitation to Atwal for the reception hosted by High Commissioner of Canada, Nadir Patel. The invitation to the former activist of the now-outlawed International Sikh Youth Federation had added to the embarrassment for Canadian Government during Trudeau's week-long visit in India, which had already been overshadowed by the perception that Ottawa had done very little to address New Delhi's concerns over continued anti-India activities by radical pro-Khalistani elements among the Sikhs in Canada.

Patel hosted the dinner in honour of Trudeau on February 22, just a day before Canadian PM was ceremonially welcomed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan and the two leaders had a formal meeting. What also came up as an embarrassment to Trudeau was his wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau and his minister Amarjeet Sohi's pictures with Atwal going viral on social media – all shot during Canadian Prime Minister's visit to Mumbai on February 20.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) quoted an unnamed "senior official" of Trudeau Government suggesting that "rogue political elements in India" might have "orchestrated the embarrassing invitation" to Atwal to make Ottawa appear sympathetic to Khalistani Sikh extremism.

"Let me categorically state that the Government of India, including the security agencies, had nothing to do with the presence of Jaspal Atwal at the event hosted by the Canadian High Commissioner in Mumbai or the invitation issued to him for the Canadian High Commissioner's reception in New Delhi," Raveesh Kumar, official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, said in New Delhi. "Any suggestion to the contrary is baseless and unacceptable."

Trudeau, himself, supported the theory mooted by the "senior official" of Canadian Government, who, according to the CBC, had knowledge of Prime Minister's security protocols. "Our professional, non-partisan public service does high-quality work and when one of our top diplomats and security officials says something to Canadians, it's because they know it to be true," the star.com quoted Trudeau telling opposition leader Andrew Scheer in Canadian Parliament.

Atwal and three other Khalistanis had been arrested by local police shortly after they had made an attempt to kill Sidhu on an isolated gravel road near Gold River on Vancouver Island on May 25, 1986. They had been convicted in February 1987 and sentenced to imprisonment for 20 years. Their cases had been overturned when a lawyer showed that the evidence against the four attackers had been obtained on a fraudulent warrant by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Sidhu had later been killed at Moga in Punjab in 1991.