Is Rishi Sunak covering up evidence of Indian anti-Sikh interference in the UK?

Today (1.12.23) Indian media have reported news of RAW (India’s Research and Analysis Wing intelligence bureau) agents being “asked to leave” the USA and the UK this summer.

The move came after the suspicious death of Shaheed Bhai Avtar Singh Khanda in Birmingham (UK) from suspected poisoning and the assassination of Shaheed (martyr) Bhai Hardeep Singh Nijjar this June. The second in command in London was told to leave the UK around the same time the head of the RAW base in San Francisco was also expelled from the USA. RAW was also denied from replacing its chief officer in Washington (DC, USA).

RAW now has no official presence in North America for the first time since its inception, according to reports. In the summer, RAW underwent mass upheaval after the resignation of its Chief Samant Goel. US based Sikh human rights group later released a detailed report of Goel leading massacres of Sikhs through the 90s.

The Indian media revelations have been released as part of more information coming from the USA’s indictment this week of an Indian national – known trafficker Nikhil Gupta – for planning the assassination of New York (USA) based activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, in yet another twist in the ongoing geopolitical upheaval caused by India’s war on the Khalistan movement in the West.

Speaking on the situation, Sikh Press Association Senior Press Officer Jasveer Singh said, “UK Sikh orgs will be shocked to learn that an Indian intelligence officer was asked to leave the UK, shortly after the deaths of two Sikh activists sent shockwaves through the world.

“UK Sikh efforts to have this government come clean about its relationship with India and the targeting of Sikh activists have been ignored since at least 2014, but remained strong through various campaigns such as #FreeJaggiNow, #FarmersProtest, #WestMidlands3 and more. And within this climate to think Rishi Sunak covertly oversaw the discreet expulsion of an Indian intelligence officer may look like clear evidence that the UK is trying to cover-up for an Indian thuggish transnational repression campaign against Sikhs.

“Global Sikh communities will be demanding immediate answers from Rishi Sunak. Why was this expulsion of an Indian intelligence officer not made public? What was he doing that led to him being kicked out? What presence do RAW have in the UK now?”

Read an extract of a news report on this groundbreaking story from India’s The Print below (30.11.23).

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Two senior Research and Analysis Wing officers were asked to leave their stations in major Western cities earlier this summer, ahead of a decision by United States prosecutors to initiate criminal charges in the wake of the spy agency’s alleged role in an assassination campaign targeting pro-Khalistan activists, intelligence sources have told ThePrint. 

RAW was also blocked from replacing its station head in Washington, DC, it is learnt.

Expelling the officers was part of a series of moves intended to signal anger against what the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom saw as violations of the unwritten conventions which govern the operations of RAW in those countries.

The officers were the head of the RAW station in San Francisco and the second-in-command of its operations in London, the sources said.

The officers are of senior and mid-senior levels in the Indian Police Service (IPS). ThePrint is withholding their names as both remain in service with RAW.

In addition, the Government of India was denied permission to post an officer to replace RAW’s station chief in Washington, DC, who returned home earlier this year. The new officer, in line with long-standing RAW convention, was to have taken charge before the scheduled retirement of the organisation’s former chief, Samant Goel, on 30 June.

The shuttering of RAW’s stations in San Francisco and Washington DC, coming on the back of the publicly-declared expulsion of its station chief in Ottawa, Pavan Rai, has left the organisation unrepresented in North America for the first time since it was founded during the tenure of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1968.

Prosecutors in the United States have claimed that ethnic-Punjabi alleged drug dealer Nikhil Gupta was offered up to $150,000 by an individual claiming to work for the Indian intelligence services to arrange the murder of an unnamed Khalistan lawyer and activist.

Though the indictment does not name the purported victim or the Indian intelligence service, government sources have told ThePrint that US officials told interlocutors in New Delhi that RAW conspired to assassinate top Khalistan activist and lawyer Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.

Following the gangland-style killing of alleged Khalistan terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June, The Washington Post revealed Wednesday that US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director William Burns had met with their counterparts in India earlier this year to demand accountability in the case.

The expulsion of the RAW officer in San Francisco, Indian government sources said, was intended to underline their message that the US would not cooperate with Indian intelligence if the agency continued offensive operations in the West, an Indian intelligence officer familiar with the case said.

Even though national security officials in the UK gave no reasons for asking for the removal of the RAW officer from London, a second officer noted, the action seemed to be of a symbolic nature, since it targeted the junior of two so-called “disclosed” positions at the High Commission of India in the city, whose status as intelligence officers is known to the host government.

According to the source, British intelligence had, however, voiced unhappiness on several occasions over the increasing involvement of RAW in Sikh diasporic politics in the country under former chief Goel, a Punjab-cadre IPS officer who served in operations against Khalistan terrorists before joining RAW.

“The general practice with these things,” says one senior RAW officer, “is that an overenthusiastic intelligence officer will be called in by the secret service of the host country, and told not to be a naughty boy. There might be a gentle reminder that the officer is under surveillance, just like their officers in our country. If the problem really escalates, the Ambassador or High Commissioner might be involved, but things have never gone this far.”