New Delhi:
India has dismissed as “baseless and baseless” allegations by The Washington Post that an Indian intelligence officer hired a hit squad to kill US-based Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.
In the report published on Sunday, US intelligence agencies are said to have assessed that the operation to kill Pannun was approved by Samant Goel, then chief of the Indian spy organization Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).
“The report in question contains baseless and baseless allegations on a serious matter,” Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a statement.
“The high-level committee set up by the Indian government to investigate security concerns shared by the US government regarding networks of organized criminals, terrorists and others is under investigation,” Jaiswal said.
“Specuative and irresponsible comments on this are not helpful,” he said.
The US Department of Justice had charged an Indian national in a foiled assassination plot. It alleged that an Indian government official (referred to as CC-1), who was not identified in the indictment filed in a federal court in Manhattan, recruited an Indian national named Nikhil Gupta to hire a hitman to allegedly carry out the murder of to execute the Sikh separatist. which was foiled by American authorities.
Canada has also alleged that Indian government agents were involved in the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia. However, India has regularly pointed out that Canada has consistently given space to anti-India extremists.