A Canadian spy company has warned that India is utilizing cyber expertise to trace separatists overseas, a day after the nation’s authorities accused a prime Indian official of authorizing violence that included the killing of a Sikh activist in Vancouver.
In a report, Canada’s Communications Safety Institution (CSE) mentioned India was utilizing cyber capabilities “to trace and surveil activists and dissidents dwelling overseas” in addition to stepping up cyber-attacks towards Canadian authorities networks.
Canada is residence to the biggest Sikh neighborhood outdoors of India, and consists of activists for an unbiased Sikh state.
Ottawa has accused India of orchestrating the 2023 killing in Vancouver of the 45-year-old naturalized Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a outstanding campaigner for “Khalistan”, the perimeter separatist motion for an unbiased Sikh homeland in India’s Punjab state.
“It’s clear that we’re seeing India being an rising [cyber] menace actor,” the CSE chief, Caroline Xavier, advised a information convention.
Within the report, her company blamed the rift in bilateral relations between Canada and India for “very probably” driving this exercise.
The report notes that after Canada’s accusations, “a pro-India hacktivist group” launched crippling DDoS assaults – flooding a system with on-line site visitors to make it inaccessible to respectable customers – towards Canadian web sites together with the army’s public web site.
On Tuesday, officers revealed that Ottawa had traced a marketing campaign focusing on Canadian Khalistan activists to the best ranges of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s authorities.
Testifying at a home of commons public security and nationwide safety committee, the deputy minister of overseas affairs, David Morrison, confirmed a Washington Submit story that implicated the Indian residence affairs minister, Amit Shah, within the plot to intimidate and even kill Canadian Sikhs.
The Submit cited an unnamed senior Canadian official as having mentioned that Shah approved an intelligence gathering and assaults marketing campaign, together with the 2023 killing of Nijjar.
Morrison mentioned he was a supply for the data, telling the committee: “The journalist referred to as me and requested me if it was that particular person. I confirmed it was that particular person.”
The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, and the nationwide police have mentioned there are “clear indications” of India’s involvement within the homicide, in addition to a broad marketing campaign of intimidation, violence and different threats towards Khalistan activists.
India has dismissed the allegations.
Delhi and Ottawa earlier this month every expelled the opposite’s ambassador and different senior diplomats.
4 Indian nationals have been arrested in reference to the homicide.
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