India needs to learn from Mossad

[urban rednek]

Remember the furor over Trudeau claiming that India was behind the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tru...jjar-1.6970498

Turns out that claim may not be so far-fetched. The US Justice Department has laid charges against an Indian national, with ties to the Indian government, for an identical plot in the US.
This sort of stuff doesn't work so well when you hire an undercover DEA agent to perform the hit.

https://theintercept.com/2023/11/29/...-nikhil-gupta/

India Accidentally Hired a DEA Agent to Kill Sikh American Activist, Federal Prosecutors Say

The indictment for the brazen murder-for-hire plot brings more heat onto India for its alleged transnational assassination program.

Murtaza Hussain
November 29 2023, 1:34 p.m.

On Wednesday, the Justice Department announced it had filed charges against a man allegedly working for the Indian government to orchestrate the assassination of a U.S. citizen earlier this year. An Indian government official allegedly instructed Nikhil Gupta, an Indian national, to coordinate the murder of a Sikh separatist living in New York.

The indictment alleges that Gupta, after being recruited by the Indian government official, hired a hitman and paid him a $15,000 advance to carry out the murder this past summer. The hitman was actually an undercover agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration. According to a report on the indictment in the Washington Post, the intended target of the killing was Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, general counsel for the New York-based Sikh activist group Sikhs for Justice. In the DEA’s press release, Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen said investigators had “foiled and exposed a dangerous plot to assassinate a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil.”

“India showed a clear disregard for the rule of law when its government orchestrated the killing of an American activist on U.S. soil.”

The alleged assassination plot against Pannun was in the works around the same time as the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian citizen who was also a leader in the Sikh separatist movement. Nijjar was murdered outside Vancouver in June; the Canadian government has alleged the involvement of Indian intelligence in his death.

The Indian government has come under scrutiny over an alleged transnational assassination program targeting its opponents in foreign countries. In addition to the murder of Nijjar, The Intercept has also reported on alleged FBI warnings to Sikhs in the U.S. as well as alleged plots by India to assassinate Sikh activists in Pakistan. Both the Nijjar killing and the Gupta plot came ahead of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trip to the U.S. in June.

“India showed a clear disregard for the rule of law when its government orchestrated the killing of an American activist on U.S. soil, coinciding with Modi’s White House visit,” said Pritpal Singh, a coordinator for the American Sikh Caucus Committee who was among the Sikh American activists who were contacted by the FBI after Nijjar’s killing.

The details in the indictment reveal a murder-for-hire plot gone awry. Gupta, 52, described as being tied to the international weapons and narcotics trade, was alleged to have worked as a co-conspirator to an Indian government official with a background in security and intelligence. Along with others based in India and elsewhere, Gupta helped plan the murder of Pannun over his advocacy for an independent Sikh state and criticisms of the Indian government. In return, the government official indicated he would help secure the dismissal of criminal charges against Gupta in India, including during a meeting in New Delhi to discuss the plot. The Indian government official provided Gupta with details about Pannun, including his address, associated phone numbers, and his daily routine, which Gupta then gave to the DEA agent working undercover as a hitman.

According to the indictment, the Indian government official told Gupta that he was targeting multiple people in the U.S. In communications, the Indian official told Gupta that he had a “target in New York” as well as another target in California. Gupta replied: ”We will hit our all Targets.” The indictment also indicated that Pannun was surveilled in New York using a cellphone application that tracks GPS coordinates and enables the user to take photographs. The Indian official allegedly agreed to pay $100,000 for the murder of Pannun, with a $15,000 advance paid to the undercover agent around June 9, according to the indictment. Nijjar was fatally shot less than 10 days later outside a Sikh temple in the Vancouver suburbs.

According to the indictment, Gupta instructed the DEA hitman to kill Pannun “as soon as possible,” but not when high-level meetings were expected to take place between U.S. and Indian officials. Modi was scheduled to visit the U.S. on an official trip between June 21 and 23. On June 18, the day of Nijjar’s murder, the Indian government official sent Gupta a video of the Sikh leader slumped dead in his car. The next day, Gupta allegedly contacted the undercover DEA agent to tell them that Nijjar, like Pannun, had also been targeted for his opposition to the Indian government, telling the agent, “We have so many targets.”

Gupta also allegedly promised “more jobs, more jobs” to the hitman, referring to more assassinations that would be carried out in the future. In a video call with the DEA agent, roughly a week before the killing of Nijjar, Gupta and a group of men dressed in business attire and seated in a conference room allegedly told the agent, “We are all counting on you.”

There is mounting evidence that India is running a transnational targeted killing program against dissidents. Documents reported by The Intercept last week alleged that India’s Research and Analysis Wing was coordinating the murders of individuals in Pakistan, using local criminal networks and assets based in the United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan. A slew of Sikh and Kashmiri separatists in Pakistan have been killed over the past few years, the pace of which has picked up in recent months. Such killings may be taking place in the West as well. In addition to Nijjar, in recent years a number of Sikh activists have died in mysterious circumstances in the United Kingdom and Canada, prompting accusations from family members and others of Indian government involvement.

According to the indictment, Gupta was arrested in the Czech Republic in late June. He is charged with murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire. Gupta is currently “in jail waiting to answer to these charges,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office press release.

The accusations against Gupta expand the scope of what is publicly known about India’s alleged assassination campaign in Western countries.

“These revelations are deeply unsettling and have shocked our community,” said Singh. “The Indian rogue regime must be held accountable, and the perpetrators must face justice.”

[CaberTosser]

Made me think of that racist Laith Marouf that our gov’t wants our money back from, but he’s in Lebanon now. Perhaps we could tell tye Mossad that they can keep the $$ he owes Canada if they can find him. A finders fee of sorts…l

[Smoky buck]

Really what can we expect when Canada gives terrorists sanctuary to hide

[3blade]

Remember when the foreign interference enquiry was about China screwing with our elections by financing the Trudeau foundation and liberal candidates, and intimidating voters? Funny how that’s disappeared from CBC

Selfie the clown obviously knew about this and sat on it until he needed a distraction. He must have some pull with the hard left in Washington for them to play it up as well.

None of the India situation is remotely new, they’ve been killing each other for hundreds of years. I’m certainly not condoning sovereignty violations of any sort, they need to keep their war on their own territory. But relatively speaking it’s small potatoes compared to China.

[Pioneer2]

Also needs to learn from the Mossad.

[32-40win]

India is in the process of figuring out building it's own military industrial complex for arming itself against China and Pakistan. Building up an org like Mossad , CIA is in progress too, and they certainly have the population base around the world to do it. They were kind of starting to lean towards the US and EU a bit more due to RU krapping out on them as a supplier, but, maybe things like this will dampen that a bit once again. Found a fair bit of interesting stuff off and on over the years on what goes on over there, lot more than folk may think. Not sure what the US is working on other than the naval area, or if they really are trying to develop better relations with them or not, India's colonial experiences have somewhat inured them to US/EU influences.

[Grizzly Adams1]

Generally, when the Mossad takes somebody out, everyone agrees they had it coming and it's no big deal, but Trudeau has to pander to the Sikh vote, different story.

Grizz

[AxeMan]

I think this whole India Nijjar murder story is a distraction (red herring) engineered by Trudeau's handlers in collaboration with Biden's. He needed the channel changed on the Chinese interference and this was it.

Nijjar was a terrorist through and through and should have never been in Canada. I don't care if India killed him, he had it coming. Focus should be on that, not trying to smear Modi in India. How many killings has the USA engineered?

[Bigwoodsman]

Originally Posted by AxeMan

I think this whole India Nijjar murder story is a distraction (red herring) engineered by Trudeau's handlers in collaboration with Biden's. He needed the channel changed on the Chinese interference and this was it.

Nijjar was a terrorist through and through and should have never been in Canada. I don't care if India killed him, he had it coming. Focus should be on that, not trying to smear Modi in India. How many killings has the USA engineered?

Agreed.

BW

[trailraat]

Originally Posted by urban rednek

Remember the furor over Trudeau claiming that India was behind the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tru...jjar-1.6970498

Turns out that claim may not be so far-fetched. The US Justice Department has laid charges against an Indian national, with ties to the Indian government, for an identical plot in the US.
This sort of stuff doesn't work so well when you hire an undercover DEA agent to perform the hit.

https://theintercept.com/2023/11/29/...-nikhil-gupta/

While the Indian national may be government linked I find it hard to believe that a governmental spy agency would be that sloppy. I would suggest that, while this may be linked to people involved in government, it is more likely someone using their positions and power to take issues into their own hands.

Government corruption is widespread in India.

From my perspective this in no way absolves Trudeau from his immature, un-diplomatic handling of the situation. Trudeau was trying to score easy points at home after he was publicly embarrassed on his trip to India.

You didn't see Biden (whatever you think of him) making a public scene.

[Au revoir, Gopher]

Originally Posted by Pioneer2

Canada
Also needs to learn from the Mossad.

Well, we already have Canadian passports.

ARG

[Grizzly Adams1]

Originally Posted by Au revoir, Gopher

Well, we already have Canadian passports.

ARG

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canad...ists-1.2642753

Grizz

[32-40win]

Mossad has used Cdn passports too, they whacked a wrong guy in Sweden when they were after the Munich Olympics crew, got busted, one had a Cdn passport. They ended up getting the right guy in Lebanon with a car bomb.

[urban rednek]

5 months later, RCMP have arrested 3 individuals in Edmonton, with more arrests pending in the coming days.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/nij...made-1.7192807

Police make arrests in killing of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar
Months-long investigation into politically charged killing also probes links to other cases: sources
Evan Dyer · CBC News · Posted: May 03, 2024 10:23 AM MDT | Last Updated: 5 hours ago

Canadian police have arrested members of an alleged hit squad investigators believe was tasked by the government of India with killing prominent Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C. last June, CBC News has learned.

Sources close to the investigation also told CBC News that police are actively investigating possible links to three additional murders in Canada, including the shooting death of an 11-year-old boy in Edmonton.

Members of the hit squad are alleged to have played different roles as shooters, drivers and spotters on the day Nijjar was killed at the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, according to the sources.

Sources said investigators identified the alleged hit squad members in Canada some months ago and have been keeping them under tight surveillance.

Kamalpreet Singh, Karanpreet Singh and Karan Brar face first-degree murder and conspiracy charges in the Nijjar case, according to documents filed in a Surrey court Friday. The charges have not been tested in court.

Although sources initially told CBC News that raids were expected in at least two provinces, RCMP confirmed Friday that all three men were arrested separately in Edmonton without incident — two of them in their homes and another elsewhere.
'This investigation does not end here,' says RCMP officer

All of the accused are Indian citizens and have been non-permanent residents of Canada for three to five years, RCMP officers told reporters at their Friday press conference announcing the charges.

Sources told CBC News the men arrived in Canada on temporary visas after 2021, some of them student visas. None are believed to have pursued education while in Canada. None have obtained permanent residency.

Others tied to this crime could be arrested in the coming days, police said.

"This investigation does not end here. We are aware that others may have played a role in this homicide and we remain dedicated to finding and arresting each one of these individuals," said Supt. Mandeep Mooker, the officer in charge of the B.C. RCMP's Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT).

Assistant Commissioner David Teboul, the RCMP commander for the Pacific region, said he wouldn't comment on the alleged links between these men and Indian officials.

He did say the force is "investigating connections to the government of India."

But Teboul said the force's relationship with Indian police has been "rather challenging and difficult."

Asked if there are any Indian "sleeper agents" in Canada, Teboul said it's a "great question" but he can't say more about it because it's "very much at the centre of evidence and ongoing investigations."

Federal Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc congratulated the RCMP on the arrests and called Friday's developments "significant progress" in trying to get to the bottom of the circumstances around Nijjar's killing.

"The work doesn't end here. In fact, the work continues," LeBlanc told reporters on Parliament Hill.

CBC News learned of the arrests — as well as other information that was not announced by police on Friday — through extensive discussions with senior investigative and government sources, as well as members of the Sikh community.

The investigative and government sources spoke with CBC News on the condition that they not be named due to the sensitivity of the matter. The sources in the Sikh community expressed concerns about their personal security, so CBC News is not disclosing their identities.
Shifting responses from India

Nijjar, a 45-year-old Canadian citizen, was shot dead on June 18, shortly after evening prayers at his Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, B.C., in what appeared to be a highly coordinated attack, according to video of the incident obtained by CBC's The Fifth Estate.

Last August, Canadian officials told representatives of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government in person that Canada had intelligence linking it to Nijjar's killing.

A month later — on Sept. 18, 2023, not long after returning from a fraught visit to India for the G20 Summit — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rose in the House of Commons to state that "Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India" and Nijjar's killing.
IHIT Superintendent Mandeep Mooker speaks during a press conference announcing the arrest of 3 individuals related to the death of Hardeep Singh Nijjar at RCMP 'E' division headquarters in Surrey, B.C., on Friday May 3, 2024.

"Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty," he added.

Modi's government has denied it ordered extrajudicial killings in the U.S. and Canada. Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar initially decried the Canadian allegation as "absurd" and accused Canada of harbouring violent extremists.

The minister's tone at a Sept. 27, 2023 speaking event was somewhat less confrontational. Jaishankar said at that time that "we told the Canadians that this is not the government of India's policy."

In December, after a U.S. indictment accused an unnamed Indian government employee of playing a role in a murder-for-hire plot in the U.S., Jaishankar issued another statement.

"We have always maintained that if any country, not just Canada, has a concern and gives us some input or some basis for that concern, we are always open to look at it," he said.

Bloomberg reported in March that the Indian government had given the U.S. a report in which it acknowledged that Indian agents were involved in the U.S. murder plot, but claimed they were rogue operatives.

At this stage of Canada's investigation, investigators are reluctant to expand on any possible connections between Nijjar's alleged killers and Indian government officials.

However, during a roundtable with Canadian Punjabi media on Sunday, Trudeau said the work by intelligence and police agencies was ongoing.

"It is very good and rigorous work. And when the time comes for them to conclude that investigation, there will be some very, very clear things that everyone around the world, including in India, will see as to responsibilities and involvement," he said.
Shot dead a day after being listed in India

Just two days after Trudeau's bombshell statement in the House — on Sept. 20, 2023 — Sukhdool Singh Gill, 39, of Winnipeg was found shot to death in a duplex in the city's northwest. A neighbour told police he heard 11 shots.

Gill also went by the alias Sukha Duneke and allegedly was part of the Davinder Bambiha gang in India, according to police documents in that country. Indian media have reported that he fled to Canada in 2017 using a false passport.

Gill was one of Punjab's most wanted men, accused of extortion and arranging money for gang members to buy weapons. Police in India have publicly linked him to murders and other serious crimes.

He was also on the radar of the government of India.

One day before his killing, Gill's name and photo appeared on a list of 43 names of suspected terrorists drawn up by India's National Investigation Agency (NIA), which linked him to the separatist Khalistan Tiger Force. India previously accused Nijjar of being part of the same organization.

The day after Gill died, the NIA tweeted an image of him along with other wanted men.
A man with dark hair, a beard and a handlebar moustache looks into the camera.

Father and son slain together

Six weeks after Gill's death, another alleged Indian gangland figure in another western province was shot dead in a brazen daylight attack that also claimed the life of his 11-year-old son.

Harpreet Uppal, a 41-year-old with links to organized crime, was shot dead in his vehicle in a busy suburban shopping area of Edmonton on Nov. 9, 2023. Two boys were in the vehicle, Uppal's 11-year-old son, Gavin, and a friend.

The Edmonton Police Service later said the killers shot both father and son, while sparing the other boy. EPS Acting Superintendent Colin Derkson said Gavin "was not caught in a crossfire or killed by mistake."

No one has been charged in the Gill or Uppal killings, and the sources told CBC News charges in connection to these cases are not expected to come Friday.
The Bishnoi gang

All of the men arrested Friday are alleged associates of a criminal group in Punjab and neighbouring Haryana state that is associated with notorious Punjabi gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, currently held in India's high-security Sabarmati prison in Ahmedabad, in Gujarat, according to sources close to the investigation.

Bishnoi is accused by the Indian government of the shooting murder of Punjabi singer-politician Sidhu Moose Wala, a former resident of Brampton, Ont., in Punjab in May 2022, as well as drug smuggling and extortion.

Bishnoi was one of two jailed Indian gangsters who claimed responsibility on social media for Gill's killing last September, describing it as revenge for a previous gangland killing in India, according to widespread Indian media reports.

India has long alleged that Punjabi gangsters are able to use Canada as a base to squeeze money from business owners and others in India, relying on an army of low-paid gunmen to act as collectors and enforcers back home.

According to both an unsealed U.S. federal indictment and Canadian investigators, the Indian government itself took advantage of those criminal networks to go after its enemies in Canada and the U.S. — enemies such as Nijjar and Khalistani activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, reportedly the target of an unsuccessful assassination plot in the U.S.

Pannun was the key organizer behind a series of independence votes in the Sikh diaspora. While the votes had no legal effect, they reportedly infuriated the Modi government.

Nijjar was targeted by India because of his role in helping to organize the votes in Canada's Sikh community, according to Canadian sources and the U.S. indictment.
Governments and gangsters

One source close to the investigation told CBC News Canada is seeing foreign governments, including India, make use of criminal elements to carry out international operations.

"Why risk sending Indian government people when you can get so much mileage using people from organized crime?" the investigator said.

But while the investigation is probing possible connections between Nijjar's killing and the Gill and Uppal cases, investigators are not convinced the Indian government was involved in the latter two.

Investigators say the Edmonton and Winnipeg killings may have had more to do with gangland rivalries and vendettas.
The foiled hit in the U.S.

The U.S. indictment alleges an Indian government employee contracted a criminal to target enemies in North America.

On June 30, 2023, Czech authorities acting on a U.S. warrant arrested alleged Indian drug trafficker Nikhil "Nick" Gupta. On Nov. 30 he was indicted in the U.S. for allegedly helping an unnamed Indian government official hire a hitman to kill an unnamed Sikh independence activist in New York, reported to be Pannun, widely considered India's number one target.

It was the Drug Enforcement Administration, rather than the FBI, that stumbled onto the U.S.-based conspiracy while investigating Gupta in a narcotics case.

Gupta didn't know that the contact he asked to help him find a hitman was in fact a confidential informant of the DEA, the U.S. indictment alleges. Gupta has denied the charges and is facing extradition to the United States. He has not been tried.

The U.S. indictment also referred to Canadian cases. It alleged the unnamed Indian government employee told Gupta the Nijjar killing had accelerated the timetable for the assassination in New York — "It's [a] priority now," he allegedly texted.

Gupta allegedly sent his supposed contract killer a video of Nijjar's body and told him to "do it quickly."

The U.S. indictment says Gupta told the police informant in an audio call that they had "four jobs" to finish before June 29 — one in New York and "three in Canada."

The publication of court documents in his case was one of a number of incidents that concerned Canadian investigators, who watched closely to see what effect the revelations might have on their own surveillance targets in Canada.
A uniquely sensitive time

While the prime minister and U.S. authorities have pointed the finger at the Indian government, Canadian investigators have struggled with the question of how high up the Indian chain of command they should pursue charges.

Investigators long ago dismissed the notion that India's overseas assassination campaign is a rogue operation, as the Indian government has maintained.

They say they believe that Indian officials would not dare to proceed with assassinations in Western countries without official sanction. As CBC News has previously reported, Canadian government sources say Canada has evidence of communications between Indian government officials in India and Canada collected in the course of their investigation.

The arrests come as Indians go to the polls in a national election that takes several weeks of voting to produce a result, expected on June 4. Modi is expected to win a third term in office.

[Grizzly Adams1]

Originally Posted by Smoky buck

Really what can we expect when Canada gives terrorists sanctuary to hide

Apparently here on student visas.

[trailraat]

Originally Posted by urban rednek

Remember the furor over Trudeau claiming that India was behind the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada?

That the Indian government is behind something isn't particularly surprising.

The furor was more over the fact that Trudeau chose to pull a stunt in Parliament by announcing it there without producing evidence.

Irresponsible and bad diplomacy.

[HyperMOA]

So the arrests come after months and mysteriously coincide with the Indian election.

Yep, the RCMP aren’t Trudeau’s puppets. They are “independent”. BS.

[Pioneer2]

Gerald Bull?

[urban rednek]

Originally Posted by Pioneer2

Gerald Bull?

You mean this Gerald Bull? Winner of the 'Wouldn't Take the Hint' Award, 1990 edition.

These days, it would be called the FAFO Award.