Two senior officials of Justin Trudeau’s Canadian government have confessed to having leaked intelligence and sensitive information against India to the American newspaper Washington Post.
According to a report by The Globe, Trudeau’s national security and intelligence adviser Natalie Drovin told a parliamentary committee that a senior official in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government was involved in a conspiracy to attack Nijjar in Canada.
Drovin said he did not receive approval from the Prime Minister to leak this confidential information. In fact, leaking confidential information was part of the communication strategy. He and Canada’s Deputy Foreign Minister David Morrison ensured that a major American newspaper received Ottawa’s version of the ongoing diplomatic dispute between India and Canada.
He said that the Prime Minister’s Office gave its full attention to this communication strategy. Meanwhile, in a report published in the Washington Post on October 13, India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval was said to have had a secret meeting with Canada’s NSA in Singapore.
The parliamentary committee rebuked Drovin and Morrison, asking why Trudeau, his cabinet ministers and the RCMP did not make this information public instead of giving it to the newspaper.
Trudeau accused India for the first time in Parliament last year
Last year, while speaking in Parliament, Justin Trudeau blamed India for the murder of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. After this, diplomatic tension between India and Canada increased. Since then, relations between India and Canada have been full of ups and downs. India had also accused Trudeau and his party of doing vote bank politics to woo Khalistani.
In January this year, former Canadian national security adviser Jody Thomas had said that India was cooperating with Canada in the probe into Nijjar’s murder.
Nijjar was killed last year
In June last year, Nijjar was shot dead outside a Gurudwara in Surrey, Canada. Nijjar was a Khalistani terrorist. He was the head of Khalistan Tiger Force. He was living in Canada for the last few years and was fueling Khalistani terrorism against India from there.
According to intelligence sources, Nijjar had in the last year become an even bigger headache for Indian investigative agencies because he had started providing overseas logistics and money to agents of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang.
When Trudeau visited India in 2018. At that time, the then Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had given him a list of Khalistani terrorists, in which Nijjar’s name was also included. The Union Home Ministry had declared Nijjar a terrorist in 2020. In 2010, an FIR was registered against him for the bomb blast outside a temple in Patiala. Police were looking for him for many cases, including inciting violence and promoting terrorist activities.
India had declared Hardeep Singh Nijjar as a designated terrorist. The NIA had also declared a reward of Rs 10 lakh on him.
