High Commissioner of India to Canada Sanjay Kumar Verma gestures during an interview in Ottawa, Canada June 24. Verma denied any connection between the Indian government and the slaying last year of a Sikh separatist activist in British Columbia.Blair Gable/Reuters
Canadian officials have yet to present any evidence to support their allegations that Indian agents are behind a vast network of violence and intimidation in Canada, the outgoing high commissioner of India says.
In an interview airing on CTV News one week after the RCMP went public with its investigation, Sanjay Kumar Verma denied any connection between the Indian government and the slaying last year of a Sikh separatist activist in British Columbia. “I entirely refute this connection,” he said.
When asked if he was involved in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, Mr. Verma said, “Nothing at all, politically motivated, no evidence presented.”
Mr. Verma is one of six Indian diplomats who have been ejected from Canada after the RCMP deemed them “persons of interest” in an investigation into what the force describes as a campaign of alleged violence, extortion and intimidation directed at the Sikh diaspora by agents of Narendra Modi’s Indian government.
He said repeatedly throughout the interview that Canada had offered no evidence to back up any of its claims about Indian officials being involved in criminal activities in Canada.
“Unfortunately, not a shred of evidence has been shared with us,” he told Vassy Kapelos, host of CTV’s Question Period, in the interview.
Commissioner Mike Duheme said last Monday the RCMP had “clear and compelling evidence” that Indian agents have engaged in, and continue to engage in, “activities that pose a significant threat to public safety.”
Laying out the sequence of events that led to the highly unusual news conference, the RCMP said in a statement that Mark Flynn, the deputy commissioner of federal policing, “made attempts to meet with his Indian law enforcement counterparts to discuss violent extremism occurring in Canada and India, and present evidence pertaining to agents of the Government of India’s involvement in serious criminal activity in Canada.”
Those attempts were “unsuccessful,” the RCMP said, and so the evidence was “presented directly to Government of India officials.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the government of India and Indian law enforcement have “repeatedly refused” to work with their Canadian counterparts, despite the “clear and compelling evidence” the RCMP has shared with Indian officials.
Mr. Verma, in the interview, described bureaucratic issues that prevented a meeting at which such evidence could have been offered. He said when Canadian law-enforcement officials wanted to meet with their Indian counterparts, they submitted visa paperwork at the last minute, with “no agenda at all” provided to Indian officials who would have to process the travel applications.
“I think it was pre-planned,” he said, adding, “I think it was absolutely politically motivated.”
At one point, Mr. Verma tacitly acknowledged that the RCMP did in fact say they had evidence.
“How politically independent they are, we can discuss it till the cows come home,” he said, adding, “I will give you my view: So till two days before, they said there is no evidence to share, in the foreign defence committee meeting. And all of a sudden, there was all the evidence in the world available with them.”
At another point in the interview, Mr. Verma at first denied engaging in surveillance of Sikh separatist activists in Canada, then pivoted to say that Indian diplomats only monitor public statements and activity – “nothing covert” – of political adversaries on Canadian soil.
Daniel Stanton, a former CSIS officer, said he thought it was “a little bit of a slip” when Mr. Verma talked about how he and his colleagues collect information on Sikh activists in Canada, as though the “overt” methods he outlined made it legitimate.
He also said Mr. Verma muddled the reasons for the RCMP being unable to meet with their Indian counterparts. “He sort of goes around, he complicates it,” he said. “And its complication is only exceeded by the absurdity of the whole thing. They just refuse to meet, right? I mean, we heard that, we heard everywhere – Singapore, Dubai, everywhere – they refused to meet.”
In the end, Mr. Stanton said, Mr. Verma’s intended audience for the interview was probably the Indian government and public.
“I think he clearly is under direction to do this,” he said. “This is the line they’ve consistently done.”