Washington: Invoking the alleged official Indian hand in the assassination of an overseas Khalistani militant and plots to extend such killings - even before any culpability has been established in the matter - a US religious freedom watchdog has called on the Biden administration to designate India as a “country of particular concern” and sanction it under the US Religious Freedom Act.
In its annual report earlier this year, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent federal government commission, had already recommended that the administration impose targeted sanctions on Indian government agencies and officials responsible for “severe violations of religious freedom by freezing those individuals’ assets and/ or barring their entry into the United States”.
It pushed the case again, saying, “The Indian government’s alleged involvement in the killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada and the plot to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in the United States are deeply troubling, and represent a severe escalation of India’s efforts to silence religious minorities and human rights defenders both within its country and abroad.”
USCIRF commissioner Stephen Schneck said, in a statement, that the commission is “alarmed by India’s increased transnational targeting of religious minorities and those advocating on their behalf”. Recent efforts by the Indian government to silence activists, journalists, and lawyers abroad pose a serious threat to religious freedom, he added.
This is not the first time the USCIRF has made the sanctions pitch to the administration in the face of a contemptuous smackdown from New Delhi. It has recommended designating India a country of particular concern in each of its last three annual reports in the face of rejection from the secretary of state (who makes the determination) and a pushback from the Indian government, which earlier this year advised USCIRF “to develop a better understanding of India, its plurality and its democratic ethos”.