US calls alleged plot to kill Pannun 'transnational oppression', wants India's probe to hold accountable ones involved

New Delhi: US President Joe Biden’s administration has called the alleged plot to kill Khalistani Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in the United States a case of “transnational oppression” and has nudged New Delhi to hold accountable anyone found responsible for it.

 The Biden administration, however, acknowledged the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry by the Government of India to probe the allegation that one of its officials had been involved in plotting the assassination of the Khalistani Sikh separatist leader in the United States.

 The issue came up for discussion during the visit of Jonathan Finer, the Principal Deputy National Security Adviser of the US, to New Delhi this week. Finer not only had separate meetings with his counterpart in New Delhi, Vikram Misri, and Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra, but also called on National Security Adviser Ajit Doval as well as External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.

Finer “acknowledged India’s establishment of a Committee of Enquiry to investigate lethal plotting in the United States and the importance of holding accountable anyone found responsible,” according to a press release issued by the White House in Washington DC after his talks with Misri and others in the top echelon of the Government of India in New Delhi.

 The meeting between Misri and Finer was the first high-level bilateral engagement after the relations came under a shadow following the indictment of a citizen of India by the Department of Justice of the US in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate Pannun, a Canadian American Khalistani Sikh separatist leader.

 “One, we have made clear that we oppose transnational oppression no matter where it occurs or who might be conducting it,” Matthew Miller, the spokesperson of the US Department of State, told journalists in Washington DC, adding: “That’s not a comment specific to India. That’s a comment specific to any country in the world.”

 A journalist had asked Miller about the view of the Biden administration on the alleged role of an official of the Government of India in engaging Nikhil Gupta, a citizen of the country, to hire a contract killer for the assassination of Pannun, a leader of the extremist organisation Sikhs for Justice (SFJ). The allegation by the US Department of Justice came even as New Delhi’s relations with Ottawa deteriorated over the past couple of months after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, on September 18, last alleged that India had a role in the June 18 killing of Khalistani Sikh extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjar at the parking lot of a gurdwara in the British Columbia province of the North American country.

 “When this alleged incident was brought to our attention, we made very clear at the most senior levels of our government to the most senior levels of the Indian government how seriously we would treat something like this,” Miller, the spokesperson of the US Department of State, said.  “They (the Government of India) have opened an investigation into the matter, and we look forward to seeing the results of that investigation,” he further added.