New Delhi: Legal and law enforcement authorities in Canada are yet to share the death certificate of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar with India’s counterterrorism agency, which had requested it, ThePrint has learnt.
Sources in the security establishment told ThePrint that the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which has filed chargesheets related to nine cases it has been probing against Nijjar, had reached out to Canadian authorities to seek the death certificate to submit the document in the special court, which will be hearing the cases.
“When we approached them to seek a death certificate to submit it as a part of the judicial process in the court, where we filed the chargesheets against him, we were instead asked why we needed the document. It shows the kind of cooperation Canadian authorities have done so far in cases related to people accused of spreading terrorism in India,” a top official in the establishment told ThePrint.
Sources in the NIA have confirmed to ThePrint that the agency filed its first case against Nijjar in 2018 and initiated the last case against him in 2022 under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act or UAPA.
Nijjar, designated as an individual terrorist by the Ministry of Home Affairs in July 2020, was gunned down outside a Sikh temple in the British Columbia province of Canada in June last year.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), earlier in May this year, arrested four persons, namely Karan Brar (22), Kamalpreet Singh (22), and Karanpreet Singh (28), from Canada’s Alberta province and charged them with first-degree murder and conspiracy in the Nijjar murder case.
The Canadian government, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has accused “agents” of the Indian government of carrying out the killing of Nijjar in Canada, but New Delhi has denied the charge.
The allegations by the Canadian Prime Minister have led to a diplomatic spat between Ottawa and New Delhi, with both countries expelling diplomats from the other country.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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