Congress MP Bittu lambasts Pannun; urges MEA to put strong case in US, Canada
Dec 11, 2023
New Delhi [India], December 11 : Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu strongly attacked Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun and urged the Ministry of External Affairs to put up a strong case in the US and Canada to bring the extremist perpetrators to justice.
Raising the issue in the Lok Sabha on Monday, the Ludhiana MP cited the Kanishka Air India bombings that ocurred in 1985 as the Canadian authorities "ignored" the inputs shared by India.
He also said that "one-way traffic" is not good as far as bilateral relations between two countries are concerned.
Bittu said, "The FBI Director is visiting India this week...there are many conventions of diplomatic relations, bilateral relations. We respect and value our country but how will it work in case of one-way traffic?"
Referring to the efforts made by India on sending extradition requests for extremists, he said, "I have failed to understand that India has sent 26 extradition requests...But they are demanding perfect proof, absolute proof. Now, we don't have any idea what proof they are talking about."
He also slammed Pierre Trudeau, former Canadian prime minister and father of Justin Trudeau for not acting on the warnings issued by the Indian government before the 1985 Kanishka Air India bombings.
"Secondly, father-like-son...in a similar manner, India wrote (to Canada) in 1982. The biggest mass murder that happened in Canada was the Kanishka air bombing in which over 300 people were killed. Even then, our government continuously gave warnings, but the Canadian authorities repeatedly ignored them. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) didn't follow it at all," he further said.
Notably, an Air India flight travelling from Canada to India via London, exploded off the Irish coast, killing all 329 people on board.
'Babbar Khalsa', a Khalistani separatist group and terror outfit, was implicated in the incident.
The Ludhiana MP also cited the recent threats made by Pannun of attacking the Indian Parliament and the Air India flights and urged the Ministry of External Affairs to put up a strong case against them in the US and Canada.
"Now, that Pannun is again threatening to blow up this Parliament. He is threatening to bomb Air India flights too," Bittu said.
He added, "Inquiry is going on, neither do we kill people on foreign lands, nor are we such a country...youngsters are being paid 100 dollars to write 'Khalistan' on walls, and later they are arrested by NIA...Our MEA should put up a strong case and it's not a single window that only they (US, Canada) will be heard, we are not a weak country".
This comes on the heels of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray's visit to India this week.
The MEA had earlier said that Wray's visit was part of the ongoing cooperation between the US and India in areas of security and counter-terrorism.
Indian envoy to Canada Sanjay Kumar Verma had said that New Delhi has made 26 requests to Ottawa over the past five or six years to extradite people in Canada to India. "We are still waiting for action," he said.
