New Delhi: With Canadian authorities not accepting India’s request to release the death certificate of designated Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijar, Indian security agencies might face difficulties in closing the cases filed against the slain "Khalistani terrorist” under Indian law.
From 2018 to 2022, as many as nine cases were registered against Nijar by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the absence of a death certificate might pose challenges for the NIA to close the cases as the trial may continue “in absentia.”
"We have asked the Canadian authorities for the death certificate of Nijar, but we were not provided with the same," said a senior government official.
A Canadian Sikh separatist, Nijjar was killed outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Columbia on June 18, 2023, by an unidentified gunman. The NIA designated Hardeep Singh Nijjar as a terrorist in 2020. Ever since Nijar was killed on Canadian soil, tensions between India and Canada have increased with the Canadian authorities accusing India of being one of the top sources of foreign interference in Canada.
However, India has argued that the rise of the Sikh separatist movement in Canada has interfered in India’s domestic affairs. As Indian security agencies mounted operations against Khalistani activists and gangsters, as many as six terrorism cases have been registered against another top Khalistani leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.
The NIA has also attached at least three properties of Pannun in Chandigarh and Amritsar. Indian security agencies have not been able to get any result from the Red Corner notice issued against Pannun by the INTERPOL. According to an NIA official, the agency has registered 66 cases this year with a high conviction rate of 95.13 per cent.
Meanwhile, NIA has announced a reward of Rs 10 lakh for the arrest of Anmol Bishnoi, the brother of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, in connection with a shooting incident that occurred outside Bollywood actor Salman Khan’s Mumbai residence earlier this year.
A case was registered by the NIA against nine accused, including both the Bishnoi brothers, in 2022 for being part of a conspiracy to "raise funds, recruit youth to carry out terrorist acts in Delhi and other parts of the country" besides targeted killings of prominent persons.
Meanwhile, the NIA is conducting a preliminary investigation into the cases of sabotage on the railway tracks that took place in different places across the country.
"We are conducting a preliminary investigation into the sabotage incident," the NIA official said. The NIA is conducting an investigation into four sabotage incidents that happened in different railway zones in the recent past.
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