India-Canada ties: ‘Fiasco on part of Indian govt,’ says ex-envoy Cameron Mackay

Canada’s former high commissioner, Cameron MacKay, has claimed that recent US indictments of Indian nationals and developments with New Delhi suggest a coordinated plot to commit violence that both the US and Canada are investigating.
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MacKay, who left India in August, criticised the Indian government, calling it a “fiasco” to believe that its agents could orchestrate violent acts in Canada and the US without facing the consequences, as reported by CBC News.
“Some serious red lines were crossed, and for that reason, Canada has taken the strong diplomatic and law enforcement action that it has up to now,” he said.
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“Indian govt’s position up until now has been to deny and vilify Canada & distract its domestic audience from real facts of what’s been happening here,” he said. “Repairing diplomatic relations with Canada is not high on India’s agenda at the moment,” MacKay said, adding, “it will take a long while before relations return to anything like normal.”
Earlier on Thursday, federal prosecutors filed an indictment in a US court claiming that Yadav was employed by the Cabinet Secretariat, which includes India’s foreign intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).
Yadav, who remains at large, faces charges of murder-for-hire and money laundering related to an alleged plot to kill Pannun, as stated by the U.S. Department of Justice. He was identified as “CC-1” (co-conspirator) in the initial indictment.
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In response to these claims, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal stated that the individual named by US prosecutors is “no longer an employee of the Government of India” and denied any association or involvement with the plot to kill an American national on US soil.
The U.S. has expressed satisfaction with the cooperation received from the Indian side regarding the case. The assassination attempt on Pannun was thwarted in June of last year following the arrest of another co-conspirator, Nikhil Gupta, who is currently in a US prison after being extradited from the Czech Republic.
Demonstrators who blame the Indian government for a murder-for-hire scheme targeting a prominent Sikh separatist leader in New York City protested outside a Manhattan courthouse on Friday, beating an effigy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The demonstration, involving more than a dozen Sikhs, followed a revised indictment that charged an Indian government employee, Vikash Yadav, in connection with the foiled plot; Yadav remains at large.
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Across the street, protesters placed a shackled effigy of Modi inside a makeshift jail cell. Another cardboard likeness of him was pounded in the face and kicked around on the sidewalk, highlighting their anger over the situation.
(With inputs from agencies)