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'Someone has screwed up big time': AS Dulat, ex-RAW boss, on the India-Canada-US tensions
Believes, strong Indo-US bilateral relations will weather the storm; Yadav will not be handed over to the FBI in the US-Canada, India Khalistani imbroglio.
“Someone has screwed up big time," is the assessment of former RAW chief, Amarjit Singh Dulat, on the ongoing tensions between the US, Canada and India after New Delhi has been accused of killing a Khalistani sympathiser in Canada and the attempted assassination of another in the US.
Asked who could have muddied the situation, which could be potentially embarrassing for New Delhi, Dulat said he could not share details but there has been a ‘goof-up’.
The former RAW chief and veteran Kashmir hand said India and the US shared a deep intelligence sharing relationship, which will ensure that the diplomatic fallout is contained.
On October 14, the chill in Indo-Canada ties took the shape of a diplomatic stand-off. Justin Trudeau's Canadian government labelled the Indian High Commissioner and other diplomats’ as persons of interest’ in the murder probe of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June 2023.
On the same day, the US state department issued a statement, which it withdrew later, related to the probe into the bid on US based Khalistani terrorist, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun's life.
The American move seemed to be in coordination with Canada's. That the US and Canada were waving red flags at India together is linked to the two being part of the powerful `Five Eyes' grouping.
Less than three weeks after he was mentioned by the US department of justice documents as CC-I (co-conspirator), Vikash Yadav, the man accused of plotting to kill Pannun, the Indian government announced that he had been sacked.
Could Yadav be now handed over to the US, which has charged him with being with a 'murder for hire’? According to Dulat, that would seem highly unlikely. “The situation would be staved off at the diplomatic level, as both countries have very close bilateral ties,” he told this reporter.
The more important thing is whether the Indo-US intelligence sharing relationship, which is the deepest in south Asia, would be impacted? “It would not come down to glitches in intelligence sharing, as the situation would be saved at the diplomatic level,” Dulat said.
Dulat was a spymaster and a former special director of the Indian Intelligence Bureau and ex-Secretary of RAW from 1999 to 2000. After retirement, he was appointed as an advisor on Jammu and Kashmir in the Prime Minister's Office and served there from January 2000 to May 2004.
