New Delhi: At least four Indian intelligence officers were asked to leave Australia in 2020 after they were caught attempting to gain access to “sensitive defence technology and airport security protocols”, a new investigation by ABC TV revealed Monday.
The report said the four left quietly and the number of expulsions put India at par with countries like “Russia and China, notorious for breaking protocols overseas”. In 2021, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) chief Mike Burgess announced that the organisation had disrupted a “nest of spies”.
“Last year, for example, one of ASIO’s investigations focused on a nest of spies, from a particular foreign intelligence service, that was operating in Australia… We confronted the foreign spies, and quietly and professionally removed them from Australia,” said Burgess in his 2021 address.
Burgess indicated that the foreign intelligence service “monitored their country’s diaspora community” — the ABC TV investigation highlighted a few examples of the monitoring activities allegedly carried out by Indian intelligence agencies.
The article reported that Harjinder Singh — a taxi driver in Melbourne in early 2023 — had received a call threatening him to stop a non-binding referendum being organised by the Indian designated terrorist organisation Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) across the world on the secession of ‘Khalistan’.
After the calls failed to deter Singh, Indian authorities sent “people to his parents’ home in Punjab saying they should get their son to “stop” his activism in Australia”, reported ABC. A couple of months later, Sikh separatist and an Indian designated terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead outside a gurdwara in Canada.
Four Indians have been arrested and charged for carrying out the killing. Canadian authorities continue to probe alleged links between the killers and Indian authorities — a charge denied by India as “absurd and motivated”.
Also read: Pannun assassination approved by former RAW chief, says Washington Post
Last year, US authorities foiled a murder-for-hire plot aimed at killing Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, an Indian designated terrorist and founder of SFJ. One Indian, Nikhil Gupta, was charged by the US Justice Department for the plot and was recently extradited to the country from the Czech Republic, where he was arrested in June last year.
The American government has shared evidence of links between Indian officials and Gupta, which is being investigated by a high-level inquiry committee set up by New Delhi in November 2023.
Methods of diaspora coercion & infiltration
According to the ABC investigation, several Australian Sikhs claimed that their families in India were threatened due to their overseas activism. Two said they were detained by Indian authorities and questioned for their activism, while another said he had received calls from Indian intelligence officers.
One Australian Sikh alleged he was criminally charged in India and required a “personal protection visa” as Canberra deemed his life at risk if he were to return to India, according to ABC TV.
ABC TV reported that the Overseas Friends of the Bharatiya Janata Party (OFBJP) — a group that has ties to the BJP in India and has a presence in Australia — focused on infiltrating local politics, with the goal of reaching the federal parliament in Canberra.
The article said officers of Indian-origin in the Liberal Party, for example Rahul Jethi, have dual membership in the party and the OFBJP. The report suggested Jethi has been canvassing to increase the Indian diaspora’s support for former immigration minister Alex Hawke.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
Also read: Australian foreign minister stresses on democratic principles amid Indian ‘espionage’ reports