Comment by Riaz Haq on December 30, 2024 at 1:52pm

Ashok Swain:

Modi did everything to defeat Muizzu in the 2023 election in the Maldives by providing men & money but failed. Even RAW had a plan to remove President Muizzu after the election. The Washington Post reports Modi manipulating elections in foreign countries.


https://x.com/ashoswai/status/1873810065469432187?s=61&t=mgTxrm...

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A plot in paradise and India’s struggle for influence in Asia
Secret contacts between Indian agents and politicians in the Maldives over ousting its pro-China leader reflect the growing contest between Asia’s great powers.
By Gerry Shih and Siddharthya Roy

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/12/30/maldives-president-...


In January, after Muizzu had won and taken office, an adviser to the Muizzu family said, a senior RAW intelligence officer at New Delhi’s embassy in Washington explored a plan to overthrow the president with two Indian intermediaries who had political and business contacts in the Maldives. One intermediary was Shirish Thorat, a former Indian police officer who has worked as a private military contractor and who advised Mohamed Nasheed when he was the Maldivian president on how to curb Islamist radicalization. The other was Savio Rodrigues, a publisher based in the Indian state of Goa who previously served as a spokesman for India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
The Muizzu family adviser provided The Post with surveillance records of phone calls and meetings held by the RAW official and Thorat, who now lives near Washington, but did not explain how the records were obtained.
When contacted by The Post, Thorat and Rodrigues separately confirmed the existence of plans to remove Muizzu but declined to say whether they were working on the Indian government’s behalf. When asked about his meetings with an Indian intelligence officer, Thorat explained that he sometimes paid social visits to friends working at the embassy and said he was not surprised that he had been surveilled, “given my work.”

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 17, 2025 at 5:29pm

India Edges Closer to Acknowledging Role in Plot to Kill American
Government inquiry calls for legal action against unnamed person involved in foiled conspiracy

https://www.wsj.com/world/india/india-edges-closer-to-acknowledging...

India inched closer to acknowledging a role in a murder-for-hire plot aimed at an American citizen, with a government panel calling for legal action against a person involved in the matter.

Relations between Washington and New Delhi were strained when federal prosecutors revealed in November 2023 an audacious plot to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, an American lawyer who has advocated for carving out a Sikh homeland from India. Prosecutors last year brought murder-for-hire charges against Vikash Yadav, a former official with India’s overseas intelligence service. He remains at large in India.

India didn’t name the person who would face legal action in the statement issued Wednesday, though it noted the person had “earlier criminal links.” A government inquiry panel set up after the American charges were unveiled last year recommended “legal action must be completed expeditiously.”

Before Wednesday’s statement, Indian officials have consistently denied any link to violence directed against American and Canadian citizens. A violent movement to create a Sikh homeland called Khalistan from the Indian state of Punjab once raged in India in the 1980s and 1990s, but was eventually brutally suppressed by Indian police forces. Many Sikhs migrated from Punjab to the U.S. and Canada, where some continued to campaign for the idea of Sikh sovereignty, something the Indian government views as an existential threat.

“This is the closest New Delhi has come to acknowledging some degree of complicity in the alleged plot, even though it didn’t publicly disclose the nature of its findings about the individual in question,” said Michael Kugelman, the director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute.

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 18, 2025 at 2:12pm

Reuters Asia
@ReutersAsia
India is a perpetrator of foreign interference, Canadian intelligence agency says

https://x.com/ReutersAsia/status/1935367071103103030

-------------

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/india-is-perpetrator-foreign...

TORONTO, June 18 (Reuters) - India is a perpetrator of foreign interference, Canada's intelligence agency said in a report published on Wednesday, just after India's and Canada's prime ministers vowed to strengthen ties at a global summit hosted by Canada.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held what both sides called productive talks on Tuesday at the G7 summit in Alberta and agreed to reinstate top diplomats they had withdrawn last year.

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 27, 2025 at 9:42am

Tejasswi Prakash
@Tiju0Prakash
The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, an official U.S. Congressional body, holding a hearing on Modi government's role in global assassination plots marks a new low for our diplomacy and democracy.

🔹 Hardeep Singh Nijjar was killed in Canada.
🔹 Gurpatwant Singh Pannun assassination attempt in New York.
🔹 India is now clubbed with authoritarian regimes practicing transnational repression.

Instead of building India's moral and democratic image globally, Modi government is:

Weaponizing intelligence agencies for political killings abroad.

Shaming 1.4 billion Indians on international forums.

Turning our republic into a rogue state.

Nationalism is not killing critics abroad. It’s upholding law, democracy & dignity.
Modi's foreign policy is no longer a “masterstroke,” it’s becoming a global embarrassment.

https://x.com/Tiju0Prakash/status/1938479437139292167

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 2, 2025 at 11:05am

Ashok Swain
@ashoswai
The EU report names India under Modi committing serious transnational repression - to coerce, control and silence individuals in other countries using a broad range of methods - digital surveillance to extraterritorial killings

https://x.com/ashoswai/status/1951496857680499163

---------
In 2023, India came under the spotlight as a perpetrator of transnational repression with the killing
of Hardeep Singh Nijjar. The Sikh activist was shot outside a temple in Surrey, Canada. Canadian
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau subsequently announced that his government was investigating
credible allegations of a link between Indian government agents and the killing of Nijjar, a Canadian
citizen164. Relations between India and Canada swiftly deteriorated, with both countries expelling
diplomatic staff and accusing each other of interference in internal affairs165.
This was not an isolated incident. In the same year, law enforcement thwarted a plot to kill
Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, another Sikh activist, in New York. Just as in Nijjar’s case, American
agencies alleged links to the Indian intelligence agency, including potential knowledge of the plan
to kill both activists by people within Indian Prime Minister Modi’s inner circle. In recent years, at
least five Sikh activists in the US and five in Canada were warned by law enforcement about credible
threats to their physical security, indicating an increasingly global and aggressive campaign of
transnational repression by the Indian government166. Moreover, two killings and various killing
attempts attributed to Indian intelligence services were directed against exiled Sikh and Kashmiri
activists living in Pakistan, who are labelled as terrorists by the Modi government167.
In the FH Database, India is the only country classified as ‘Free’, according to the organisation’s
Freedom in the World Index, that has engaged in an act of transnational repression. In 2015, Indian
intelligence officers in Dhaka, working with Bangladeshi plain clothes police, arrested two alleged
members of the United National Liberation Front, a separatist group in Northeast India, and
returned them to India. In the same year, a Sikh activist who had previously received asylum in the
UK was arrested on holiday in Portugal based on an Interpol Red Notice concerning murder and

----------

Riaz Haq
@haqsmusings
#UK Parliamentary Report Accuses #India of Transnational Repression, Interpol Misuse. Its appendices list allegations from #Sikh advocacy groups that provided written evidence, including the Sikh Federation (UK), Sikhs for Justice, & others

https://x.com/haqsmusings/status/1951489851834143175
https://thewire.in/world/uk-parliamentary-report-accuses-india-of-t...

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 8, 2025 at 10:26am

Christopher Clary
@clary_co
"According to the source close to Indian intelligence, senior RAW officials hold a 'skewed world view' that 'everything is a conspiracy, that the West is out to get India,' and this paranoia played a large part in the recent assassination plots."

https://x.com/clary_co/status/1998064141999767837?s=20

----------------


Christopher Clary
@clary_co
"India... has portrayed Yadav as an independent actor, but a source close to Indian intelligence told me that one RAW officer privately characterized these denials as 'total bullshit.' Another called the plot 'a botched operation.'"

https://x.com/clary_co/status/1998064144151437652?s=20

---------------


Christopher Clary
@clary_co
Tarun Dugal, "The Sikh-Separatist Assassination Plot," The New Yorker, November 19, 2025,

https://x.com/clary_co/status/1998064145611296836?s=20

--------

The Sikh-Separatist Assassination Plot
A murder in Canada and an attempted one in New York suggest a transnational campaign of violence that has imperilled Indian diplomacy with the West.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/the-sikh-separatist-assassi...

Comment by Riaz Haq on March 30, 2026 at 9:44am

Excerpts of The Economist Magazine's review of Indian propaganda film "Dhurandhar":

Is Bollywood’s latest megahit propaganda for Narendra Modi?

https://www.economist.com/asia/2026/03/29/is-bollywoods-latest-mega...

"Is Bollywood's latest megahit propaganda for Narendra Modi? “Dhurandhar: The Revenge” portrays India extracting a price for Pakistani perfidy".

"A country that cannot pull off an assassination in Canada—Canada!—without getting rumbled is in “Dhurandhar” capable of retribution that makes Mossad look like LARPing teenagers."

“Some of the biggest cheers for “The Revenge” at the showing Banyan attended erupted not when patriotic dialogue is delivered, nor when Pakistanis are finished off in increasingly imaginative ways, nor even when the sneering terrorist has his brains blown out. The loudest cheers came when the screen lit up with news footage of Mr Modi, the bravest Hindu of all. But to dismiss “Dhurandhar” as propaganda is to miss something important. It did not become a monster hit by trying to convince viewers of an alternate reality. Its genius is to reflect the world many Indians, browbeaten by years of shrill pro-Modi messaging on TV news and social media, already believe to be real.”

Comment by Riaz Haq on March 30, 2026 at 9:44am

Excerpts of The Economist Magazine's review of Indian propaganda film "Dhurandhar":

Is Bollywood’s latest megahit propaganda for Narendra Modi?

https://www.economist.com/asia/2026/03/29/is-bollywoods-latest-mega...

"Is Bollywood's latest megahit propaganda for Narendra Modi? “Dhurandhar: The Revenge” portrays India extracting a price for Pakistani perfidy".

"A country that cannot pull off an assassination in Canada—Canada!—without getting rumbled is in “Dhurandhar” capable of retribution that makes Mossad look like LARPing teenagers."

“Some of the biggest cheers for “The Revenge” at the showing Banyan attended erupted not when patriotic dialogue is delivered, nor when Pakistanis are finished off in increasingly imaginative ways, nor even when the sneering terrorist has his brains blown out. The loudest cheers came when the screen lit up with news footage of Mr Modi, the bravest Hindu of all. But to dismiss “Dhurandhar” as propaganda is to miss something important. It did not become a monster hit by trying to convince viewers of an alternate reality. Its genius is to reflect the world many Indians, browbeaten by years of shrill pro-Modi messaging on TV news and social media, already believe to be real.”

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 8, 2026 at 8:58am

Authorities Arrest Members of India-Based Gangs in Sweeping Crackdown - The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/07/us/india-gang-arrests.html

The actions were announced in Los Angeles, and most of the new arrests were in California. One of the gangs is accused of assassinating a prominent Sikh separatist leader in British Columbia.

 

Federal officials announced a sweeping crackdown on Tuesday against a vast criminal network that preyed on Indian diaspora communities around the world and has been linked to theassassination of a Sikh separatist leader in British Columbia three years ago.

The authorities in Los Angeles said the action, “Operation Hard Ball,” was the result of a broad investigation into a dizzying array of drug smuggling, extortion and other crimes choreographed from India by jailed kingpins using international operatives and smuggled cellphones. It led to more than a dozen new arrests, most occurring in California.

Indictments unsealed in Los Angeles included charges against more than three dozen people — some already in prison — including Lawrence Bishnoi, 33, a convicted gang leader who has been behind bars in India for more than a decade, and Jaggu Bhagwanpuria, 38, an ex-associate of Mr. Bishnoi’s who became a rival and, the authorities say, founded his own criminal enterprise in India’s Punjab state. 

Other defendants were accused of supporting the criminal network by smuggling guns and narcotics along long-haul trucking routes on the West Coast between Canada and Mexico. Several of the defendants are truckers, federal officials said.

Patrick Grandy, the assistant director in charge of the F.B.I.’s Los Angeles field office, said that 11 people were arrested in California, one in Indiana, one in Georgia, one in Spain and three in Vancouver, British Columbia. Several others facing charges were already in custody, but the authorities were still searching for additional gang members who were indicted.

The arrests, he said, dismantled vast criminal organizations that had “terrorized families, exploited communities and stolen lives through ruthless acts of violence in the United States and abroad.” 

“They prey on people here in the U.S. who still have ties back in India,” said Bill Essayli, the top prosecutor in the Los Angeles-based U.S. attorney’s office. One of the defendants, he said, was a police chief in India who was accused of participating in a scheme to extort $400,000 from a Los Angeles family by falsely charging their relatives in India with murder until they agreed to pay.

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 15, 2026 at 9:34am

Dan Stanton
@1DanStanton
“A former senior CSIS intelligence officer warned U.S. congressional representatives and staff in Washington Tuesday that foreign states such as India are increasingly using transnational criminal groups …”

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ex-csis-officer-brie...

https://x.com/1DanStanton/status/2077357413875974496?s=20

Ex-CSIS officer briefs U.S. congressional staff on India and transnational crime

------------



Dan Stanton
@1DanStanton
« Documents speak of him having a global footprint, including a six-month visa for Switzerland, real estate deals in Dubai, travels through Asia and Europe, and trips to Los Angeles and New York. »

https://x.com/1DanStanton/status/1941565270092546369?s=20
------
CSIS Public Report 2024

https://www.canada.ca/en/security-intelligence-service/corporate/pu...

India
As PIFI began its first phase of public hearings in March 2024, the extent of the Government of India’s involvement in foreign interference became clearer. Indian officials, including their Canada-based proxy agents, engage in a range of activities that seek to influence Canadian communities and politicians. When these activities are deceptive, clandestine or threatening, they are deemed to be foreign interference. These activities attempt to steer Canada’s positions into alignment with India’s interests on key issues, particularly with respect to how the Indian government perceives Canada-based supporters of an independent homeland that they call Khalistan.

With the re-election of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India’s political course will be a continuation of a Hindu-nationalist policy agenda that has been implemented since Prime Minister Modi was first elected in 2014. Prime Minister Modi and his core ministers and advisers are keen to build India’s global influence and counter any activity they consider as ‘anti-India,’ at home or abroad, in the name of domestic stability and prosperity. With that considered, there is a long history of India arguing that Canada is a haven for ‘anti-India’ activity, with the separatist Khalistan movement being a particular focus of India’s concern, which is rooted in the aftermath of the 1985 Air India bombing and subsequent terrorist activity in India.

The Government of Canada’s investigation into the 2023 killing of Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar continued in 2024. Four individuals were arrested in May 2024 and charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Criminal proceedings are ongoing. In mid-October, as part of ongoing RCMP investigations, the RCMP announced that evidence pointed to a link between agents of the Government of India and criminal networks to sow violent activity in South Asian communities in Canada. On October 14, Canada, in the interests of public safety, expelled six Indian diplomats and consular officials in order to disrupt this network. Links between the Government of India and the Nijjar murder signals a significant escalation in India’s repression efforts against the Khalistan movement and a clear intent to target individuals in North America.

As PIFI reached the end of its public hearings and South Asian communities in Canada expressed concerns over Government of India pressure tactics and targeting, CSIS noted that this form of foreign interference, called transnational repression, plays a central role in India’s activity in Canada. Transnational repression is a well-established tactic for foreign governments to exploit communities they view as their ethnic populations.

Canada must remain vigilant about continued foreign interference conducted by the Government of India, not only within ethnic, religious and cultural communities but also in Canada’s political system. CSIS will continue to observe and assess the nature and extent of India’s activities in Canada.

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