(Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden and other leaders expressed concern to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the G20 summit this month about Canadian claims that New Delhi was involved in the murder of a Sikh separatist leader in Canada, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.
Several members of the Five Eyes — an intelligence-sharing network that includes the U.S., the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — raised the June killing in British Columbia of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist leader, with Modi, the newspaper said, citing three people familiar with the discussions at the summit.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the FT report.
The summit was held in India days before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made his allegations public in an address to the Canadian parliament earlier this week.
The leaders intervened at the G20 summit after Canada urged its allies to raise the case directly with Modi, the newspaper reported.
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said earlier on Thursday that the U.S. is in touch with Indians at high levels following Ottawa’s claims about the murder of the Sikh separatist leader in Canada, and Washington is giving India no “special exemption” in the matter.
India has rejected Canada’s allegations and called them “absurd.” The crisis has put a further dent in Canada-India ties. India on Thursday suspended new visas for Canadians and asked Ottawa to reduce its diplomatic presence in the country.
The situation has put some Western nations in a tough position as Canada has been a long-standing partner and ally while those countries are also seeking to build strong ties with New Delhi to counter the influence of China in the Asia Pacific region.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Akanksha Khushi; editing by Sandra Maler and Leslie Adler)
