Khalistani terror group’s chief Hardeep Singh Nijjar, whose death has sparked a row, was provided the Canadian citizenship despite a red corner notice issued against him.
The red notice is issued by Interpol, and a country has to arrest the accused and deport him or her to his homeland, but the Canadian authorities did not do so.
In fact, the Indian government had raised the issue and mentioned during its talks with Canada that Nijjar was granted the Canadian citizenship months after the first red corner was issued on November 14, 2014.
According to Tribune newspaper, the first RCN was issued after a case (FIR No. 159) was registered against Nijjar at the Kotwali police station, Patiala, by the Punjab Police. The second RCN was issued in FIR No. 19 lodged at the Nurpur police station, Ropar, in 2016.
Meanwhile, the Canadian immigration minister Marc Miller took to social media platform X on Tuesday, and wrote: “I hope this dispels the baseless rumours that he was not a Canadian.” On Wednesday, however, Miller posted, “Nijjar became a Canadian citizen on May 25, 2007, earlier than I stated. The error in dates is my responsibility to assume.”
The Indian officials had also asked Ottawa about Nijjar living in Canada from 1997 to 2015 when he arrived in a flight in Toronto on February 10, 1997 using a fraudulent passport in the name of ‘Ravi Sharma’. Nijjar was detained by the Punjab Police in 1995.
Nijjar had also given an affidavit to the Canadian authorities alleging torture in India in June 1998 for seeking refuge, but his application was rejected.
In November 1998, he married a woman who sponsored him. Immigration officials noted his wife had arrived in Canada in 1997, “sponsored by a different husband” as quoted by the Tribune.
Nijjar. 45, was killed outside a gurdwara in Surrey in Canada on June 18 by unidentified assailants.
After the G20 Summit in New Delhi September 9-10, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau raised the issue of Nijjar’s death in his Parliament on September 18, and said he has “credible intelligence” inputs that the Indian authorities were involved in the killing. The Ministry of External Affairs in India has rejected his claims, calling them “absurd”.
Both countries have also expelled their diplomats, escalating the diplomatic tension between the two countries.
The Indian government had issued advisory for its citizens in Canada and those travelling to the country to “exercise utmost caution in the light of growing anti-India activities and politically-condoned hate crimes in the North American country”.
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