External Affairs Ministry (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said the allegations were baseless. He was reacting to a the report, citing an unnamed Canadian official, claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with senior officials, was aware of a plot to kill Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist leader who was killed in Canada in 2022.
The MEA spokesperson dismissed slammed the Canadian government, “Such ludicrous statements made to a newspaper purportedly by a Canadian government source should be dismissed with the contempt they deserve.” Jaiswal said such smear campaigns would only worsen the already tense relationship between India and Canada.
India dismissed a report published by Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail, calling it a “smear campaign” aimed at damaging already strained relations between the two nations.
Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a vocal advocate for Sikh separatism, was shot dead outside a gurdwara in Canada in 2022. In October, the situation between the two nations worsened when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested a possible Indian link to the killing.