"Unwarranted and unsubstantiated": MEA rejects Washington Post report on Pannun assassination plot
| 2024-04-30
Representative image.
There is an ongoing investigation of the High- Level Committee set up by the Government of India to look into the security concerns shared by the US, says MEA
India has dismissed as "unwarranted and unsubstantiated" a report in the Washington Post claiming that an Indian intelligence officer planned the assassination of US-based Khalistan activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.
The report published on Sunday (April 28, 2024) alleged that US intelligence agencies have found that the operation to kill Pannun was approved by Samant Goel, the then chief of India's intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).
India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), however, strongly refuted the allegations, calling them speculative and irresponsible. "The report in question makes unwarranted and unsubstantiated imputations on a serious matter," the MEA said on Tuesday (April 30, 2024).
"There is an ongoing investigation of the High- Level Committee set up by the Government of India to look into the security concerns shared by the US government on networks of organised criminals, terrorists and others.
Speculative and irresponsible comments on it are not helpful," the MEA stated.
British daily Financial Times had first reported that the US thwarted an attempt to kill Sikh extremist Pannun on American soil.
Following inputs from the US about the alleged assassination plot, the Government of India constituted a high-level Inquiry Committee on November 18, 2023, "to look into all the relevant aspects of the matter".
Responding to media queries on the matter on November 29, 2023, MEA Official Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said, "We have already said that during the course of discussions with the US on bilateral security cooperation, the US side shared some inputs pertaining to nexus between organized criminals, gun runners, terrorists and others".
The MEA had also indicated that India takes such inputs seriously since they impinge on our national security interests as well, and relevant departments were already examining the issue, Bagchi added.
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