Linked Modi to violence: Trudeau calls own officials 'criminals'

Brampton: In the matter of Canadian media publishing reports that linked Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar to an alleged plot that killed Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called his own intelligence officials ‘criminals’ over leaking false reports.

Trudeau told the media here on Friday, “We have seen, unfortunately, that criminals leaking top-secret information to the media have consistently gotten those stories wrong," reports NDTV.

He said that that is why Canada had a national enquiry into foreign interference, which has highlighted that criminals leaking information to media outlets are unreliable on top of being criminals.

This comes after Canada on Thursday fact-checked and denied a media report that linked India’s top leaders to criminal activity on its soil. The Canadian administration called the media report “speculative and inaccurate” and added that it is also not aware of any evidence that PM Modi was aware of any such criminal activity.

Ottawa had posted a statement on a government website in which Trudeau’s intelligence adviser Nathalie Drouin said, "On October 14th, because of a significant and ongoing threat to public safety, the RCMP and officials took the extraordinary step of making public accusations of serious criminal activity in Canada perpetrated by agents of the Government of India. The Government of Canada has not stated, nor is it aware of the evidence linking Prime Minister Modi, Minister Jaishankar, or NSA Doval to the serious criminal activity within Canada. Any suggestion to the contrary is both speculative and inaccurate."

After the report, which appeared when India-Canada ties sour, in Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail, Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that such ludicrous statements must be dismissed with the contempt they deserve, The Indian Express reported.