Biden raised Canadian Sikh separatist’s murder with Modi at G20

RELIGIONS NEWS AGENCY (REDNA) – United States President Joe Biden and other leaders expressed concern to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the G20 summit earlier this month about Canada’s claim that New Delhi was involved in the killing of a Sikh separatist leader, the Financial Times (FT) has reported.

Several members of the Five Eyes – an intelligence-sharing network that includes Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the US – raised the killing of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar directly with Modi, the newspaper reported on Thursday, citing three people familiar with discussions at the G20.

Biden and other leaders made their concerns known at the summit after Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged allies to intervene directly with Modi, the newspaper reported. The US was said to be deeply concerned by the allegations.

India has rejected Canada’s claims of official involvement in the killing, calling the allegations “absurd”.

India’s foreign ministry has said that Canada had not shared any specific information about the murder of Nijjar, 45, who was gunned down outside a Sikh temple he led in the city of Surrey in Canada’s province of British Columbia in June.

Nijjar, a plumber who was born in India but became a Canadian citizen in 2007, was a vocal supporter of a Sikh homeland in India in the form of an independent Khalistani state and was designated a “terrorist” by Indian authorities in July 2020.