New Delhi:
India on Wednesday strongly trashed as “smear marketing campaign” a Canadian media report that claimed that the Indian prime minister was conscious of the alleged plot to kill Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Referring to the report quoting an unnamed official, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal stated such “ludicrous statements” must be dismissed with the contempt they deserve.
“We don’t usually touch upon media studies. However, such ludicrous statements made to a newspaper purportedly by a Canadian authorities supply must be dismissed with the contempt they deserve,” he stated.
“Smear campaigns like this solely additional injury our already strained ties,” he stated.
Jaiswal was responding to media queries relating to the report in Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail.
In the report, the newspaper cited inputs from a senior nationwide safety official.
The report claimed the Indian nationwide safety advisor and the exterior affairs minister had been additionally within the loop of the plot.
Nijjar was gunned down on Canadian soil final 12 months.
India-Canada ties nosedived final month after Canada linked Indian High Commissioner Sanjay Verma and another diplomats to the homicide.
India has strongly rejected all of the allegations made by Ottawa in connection to the case and subsequently recalled the excessive commissioner. The Canadian authorities had stated the Indian diplomats had been expelled from the nation.
New Delhi expelled Canadian Charge d’Affaires Stewart Wheeler and 5 different diplomats following Canada’s allegations.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)