NEW YORK: Canada and the US must get tougher on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government for trying to silence dissidents on foreign soil, a Sikh separatist who was the target of an alleged India-led murder plot said in an interview.
The US Justice Department has unsealed indictments against two Indian nationals in connection with an alleged plot to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a dual US-Canadian citizen, in New York. The two Indian accused included an ex-government official, who the indictment said worked as an intelligence officer at the time and had orchestrated the assassination plan.
Pannun told Reuters earlier this month that the Modi government should not be allowed to conduct hostile activity in foreign countries and said India’s consulates in the US and Canada were running a “spy network,” although he did not provide any proof.
The US and Canada “need to put their foot down that regimes like Modi’s...should not be allowed to come to America or Canada, challenge their sovereignty and get away with it. They need to put their foot down and close (the consulates) permanently,” he said.
Pannun did not elaborate on the alleged spy network. Similar assertions have been made by Sikh activists in America and Canada.
India’s foreign ministry did not respond to detailed questions from Reuters regarding Pannun’s allegations. India, where Pannun was born, has labelled him a terrorist since 2020.
Authorities in the US and Canada declined comment on Pannun’s allegations.
The US and Canada have alleged Indian agents were involved in assassination plots in their countries last year against campaigners for ‘Khalistan’, a Sikh homeland they want carved out of India’s Punjab state where Sikh militancy in the 1980s and 1990s killed thousands of people.
India has denied involvement in any of the plots.
The allegations have damaged India’s ties with Canada and tested relations between Washington and New Delhi.
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has accused India’s government of involvement in the 2023 murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, another Sikh separatist leader in Canada. In May, Canadian police arrested and charged four Indian men for the murder. They are yet to be tried.
India has said Canada has not provided any evidence to support its allegations and New Delhi and Ottawa expelled six diplomats each earlier this month in a growing diplomatic spat.
However, India has said it is investigating the murder plot against Pannun and US officials have said they want a speedy result.
Pannun said Vikash Yadav, the former Indian official indicted by the US for the alleged attempt on his life, was just a “middle-tier soldier,” assigned the task of organizing the assassination by higher-level Indian officials. He did not offer any proof nor say how he had come to the conclusion.
New Delhi has said Yadav was no longer a government employee, without saying whether he had been an intelligence officer and not detailing when he left. Yadav’s whereabouts are not known but his family told Reuters earlier this month he had been in contact and denied the allegations in the US indictment.
Indian security officials have said they fear that a rise in support for Khalistan overseas may lead to resurgence of militancy that had previously paralyzed Punjab state, the birthplace of Sikh nationalism, where the movement for a separate homeland now commands little support.
Pannun, who has been holding independent referendums in the US, Canada and Europe on creating Khalistan, said in the interview his movement advocates peaceful resolution of the matter, and will continue despite threats to his life.
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Sikh separatist claims Indian ‘spy network’ operates in US and Canada
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Sikh separatist claims Indian ‘spy network’ operates in US and Canada
- The US Justice Department has unsealed indictments against two Indian nationals in connection with an alleged plot to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun
- The two Indians included an ex-government official, who the indictment said worked as an intelligence officer at the time he orchestrated assassination
From AI to Starlink: how drone tech is reshaping war in Ukraine
KYIV: As the war in Ukraine drags into its fifth year, drones have come to completely dominate the front line — a transformation in modern warfare that is being watched around the world.
Here is a look at the technology that is reshaping the war, four years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion by pouring tanks and men over the border:
- Kill zone -
Ranging from cheap commercial devices designed for civilian use to explosive-packed miniature aircraft, drones are responsible for up to 80 percent of battlefield damage, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov has said.
“Modern warfare is now impossible without drones,” Koleso, a Ukrainian infantry soldier, told AFP in eastern Ukraine.
The front line has been transformed into a “kill zone” stretching up to 20 kilometers (12 miles) deep — “an area between two sides where nothing can survive because it’s constantly monitored by drones,” military expert Kateryna Bondar explained.
Soldiers can only operate there in small groups, moving fast and with their eyes fixed to the sky, hoping to stay undetected.
Heavy pieces of artillery, as well as sluggish tanks and armored vehicles, are too slow and visible — making them easy targets for both sides.
Unwilling to send more men that necessary into the kill zone, Ukrainian troops use ground drones to ferry supplies to dangerous areas and to evacuate wounded soldiers.
- Fibre optics -
Maintaining a stable connection between the drone and its operator, controlling it remotely, is a crucial task.
“That’s where the real race is happening — communications and connections,” Bondar said.
Initially, most drones operated on a radio connection.
But they proved vulnerable to electronic warfare — the practice of jamming and intercepting enemy craft, causing them to drop out of the sky or lose connection to the operator.
Russia has turned to drones controlled by ultra-thin fiber-optic cables, largely immune to electronic jamming.
In scenes that resemble a dystopian sci-fi movie, their widespread use has left swathes of frontline cities and fields entombed in webs of cable.
- Starlink -
In another alternative to radio control, Ukrainians have begun attaching Starlink terminals to drones.
This allows them to fly using a satellite Internet connection.
“We need to fly far away with a stable video signal and stable control,” said Phoenix, a commander from Ukraine’s Lasar Group, a pioneer in the use of Starlink.
Russian troops soon started copying, until Ukraine pushed Elon Musk last month to disable unauthorized Russian terminals.
The move disrupted both Russian and Ukrainian systems, military observers said.
The US-based Institute for the Study of War said the switch-off likely helped enable a localized, but rapid, Ukrainian advance in the southern Zaporizhzhia region in early February.
- Air defenses -
The spread of drones has forced a revamp of air defense systems.
Firing advanced missiles — which can cost millions — to down drones worth just a fraction of that is too expensive a response.
Alongside jamming, Ukraine has also developed cheap interceptor drones built specially to destroy other craft mid-air.
“We opened the chapter of the war of drones with drones,” said Marko Kushnir of General Cherry, a leading interceptor drone maker.
Roads near the front have been equipped with protective nets attempting to stop attacking drones, while trucks fitted with anti-drone cages and drone jammers speed along them.
Machine guns are also a last resort to shoot down drones from the sky.
Ukraine’s Western allies have increasingly looked to Kyiv’s experience after Russian drones made repeat incursions into European airspace in recent months.
- AI -
Engineers are racing to equip drones with artificial intelligence to improve their performance.
Ukrainian firms such as The Fourth Law (TFL) say they have developed so-called terminal guidance, which allows AI to take control of a device in the final moments before impact.
This is meant to improve the accuracy of strikes, especially as connection is typically lost in the final moments before a hit.
“Russia and China are also developing such technologies, and if our countries don’t... we will lose,” said TFL’s Maksym Savanevskyi.
But full autonomy remains some way off.
“AI is performing a helping function rather than substituting human,” said Bondar, the military expert.
“I thought they could simply remove people from battle equipment, that it could be fully automated. That’s a naive view,” said former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, now head of SwiftBeat, a company that supplies AI drones to Ukraine’s army.
“For the foreseeable future, you’ll have drones first, people second,” he told a conference in Kyiv.
All the way on the eastern front, Koleso said foot soldiers would always remain relevant.
“Until you plant the flag yourself, with your own hands, and take the position, it cannot be considered yours,” he said.
Here is a look at the technology that is reshaping the war, four years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion by pouring tanks and men over the border:
- Kill zone -
Ranging from cheap commercial devices designed for civilian use to explosive-packed miniature aircraft, drones are responsible for up to 80 percent of battlefield damage, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov has said.
“Modern warfare is now impossible without drones,” Koleso, a Ukrainian infantry soldier, told AFP in eastern Ukraine.
The front line has been transformed into a “kill zone” stretching up to 20 kilometers (12 miles) deep — “an area between two sides where nothing can survive because it’s constantly monitored by drones,” military expert Kateryna Bondar explained.
Soldiers can only operate there in small groups, moving fast and with their eyes fixed to the sky, hoping to stay undetected.
Heavy pieces of artillery, as well as sluggish tanks and armored vehicles, are too slow and visible — making them easy targets for both sides.
Unwilling to send more men that necessary into the kill zone, Ukrainian troops use ground drones to ferry supplies to dangerous areas and to evacuate wounded soldiers.
- Fibre optics -
Maintaining a stable connection between the drone and its operator, controlling it remotely, is a crucial task.
“That’s where the real race is happening — communications and connections,” Bondar said.
Initially, most drones operated on a radio connection.
But they proved vulnerable to electronic warfare — the practice of jamming and intercepting enemy craft, causing them to drop out of the sky or lose connection to the operator.
Russia has turned to drones controlled by ultra-thin fiber-optic cables, largely immune to electronic jamming.
In scenes that resemble a dystopian sci-fi movie, their widespread use has left swathes of frontline cities and fields entombed in webs of cable.
- Starlink -
In another alternative to radio control, Ukrainians have begun attaching Starlink terminals to drones.
This allows them to fly using a satellite Internet connection.
“We need to fly far away with a stable video signal and stable control,” said Phoenix, a commander from Ukraine’s Lasar Group, a pioneer in the use of Starlink.
Russian troops soon started copying, until Ukraine pushed Elon Musk last month to disable unauthorized Russian terminals.
The move disrupted both Russian and Ukrainian systems, military observers said.
The US-based Institute for the Study of War said the switch-off likely helped enable a localized, but rapid, Ukrainian advance in the southern Zaporizhzhia region in early February.
- Air defenses -
The spread of drones has forced a revamp of air defense systems.
Firing advanced missiles — which can cost millions — to down drones worth just a fraction of that is too expensive a response.
Alongside jamming, Ukraine has also developed cheap interceptor drones built specially to destroy other craft mid-air.
“We opened the chapter of the war of drones with drones,” said Marko Kushnir of General Cherry, a leading interceptor drone maker.
Roads near the front have been equipped with protective nets attempting to stop attacking drones, while trucks fitted with anti-drone cages and drone jammers speed along them.
Machine guns are also a last resort to shoot down drones from the sky.
Ukraine’s Western allies have increasingly looked to Kyiv’s experience after Russian drones made repeat incursions into European airspace in recent months.
- AI -
Engineers are racing to equip drones with artificial intelligence to improve their performance.
Ukrainian firms such as The Fourth Law (TFL) say they have developed so-called terminal guidance, which allows AI to take control of a device in the final moments before impact.
This is meant to improve the accuracy of strikes, especially as connection is typically lost in the final moments before a hit.
“Russia and China are also developing such technologies, and if our countries don’t... we will lose,” said TFL’s Maksym Savanevskyi.
But full autonomy remains some way off.
“AI is performing a helping function rather than substituting human,” said Bondar, the military expert.
“I thought they could simply remove people from battle equipment, that it could be fully automated. That’s a naive view,” said former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, now head of SwiftBeat, a company that supplies AI drones to Ukraine’s army.
“For the foreseeable future, you’ll have drones first, people second,” he told a conference in Kyiv.
All the way on the eastern front, Koleso said foot soldiers would always remain relevant.
“Until you plant the flag yourself, with your own hands, and take the position, it cannot be considered yours,” he said.
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