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Comment by AYBABTME | Hacker News Reader

There might be a link between the groups responsible in a 1985 terrorist attack, and 38y later someone related to the movement being (allegedly) assassinated by the Indian government on Canadian soil.

But regardless of the allegations against the assassination victim, India would have no right to kill someone on Canadian soil, no matter the justifications it might have.

Extraterritorial killings are not justifiable, and definitely not by events that occurred 38y ago.

Hopefully this is all false and India wasn't involved in the murder of this person. But if true, it's inexcusable and paints India in a very bad light in term of international reputation.

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He was implicated in this murder in 2022 - https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/punjab/conspiracy-to-kill-...

And a Congress Party MLA was murdered 2 days ago and the person who called the hit was in Canada as well - https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/chandigarh/congress...

The guy who called the hit - Arsh Dalla - is a known associate of Nijjar - https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/punjab/arsh-dalla-funded-g...

To be fair, most Indian commentators also assumed the hit was indirectly called by the Indian govt when this happened. Especially after this former Khalistani turned BJP supporter was offed near the same Gurdawara a year ago by some hired hitmen - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/ripudaman-si...

It's very much a tit-for-tat gang war that's being further enabled by black money, Punjabi politics, and clan politics (Jatt versus Bishnoi).

So happy I don't live in Surrey anymore.

So I would expect that warrants would be issued, India and Canada would cooperate in the investigation and sentences would be handed by cooperating judicial systems. There's precedent for cross country justice being served. If this isn't working between Canada and India, it should be fixed. If Canada isn't cooperating where it ought, Canada should improve. I don't know anything about that. But was there an interpol warrant on this person?

> But was there an interpol warrant on this person?

Yes [0]

> would cooperate in the investigation and sentences would be handed by cooperating judicial systems

They don't really cooperate.

A lot of this is due to mutual red tape, and also because of jurisdictional issues (eg. is transnational crime under the CSIS, the RCMP, the Vancouver PD? Which court does it go to?) because Canada is very similar to India structurally (weird hyper-federalism mixed with federal powers attempting to further gain control).

Also the Indian equivalent of law enforcement isn't the greatest either due to federal-state conflicts along with like 6-8 different competing federal law enforcement agencies, plus a couple national security ones.

[0] - https://torontosun.com/news/national/what-we-know-about-slai...

I didn't know this, and these types of details would definitely modulate my (and probably other's) perception of India's justification. Example: if there was credible imminent threat, and uncooperative foreign government giving no alternative but the emergency use of clandestine force.

> modulate my (and probably other's) perception of India's justification

This whole controversy was unplanned.

There have been ongoing discussions between the Five Eyes and India about this hit and the whole Khalistan issue for months now, but Trudeau's hand was forced after the Globe and Mail (a newspaper that leans Conservative) gave him a 24 hour heads up that an article about this was about to be published.

Someone leaked, and now it's a cluster f.

However, a senior officer said, “Canada, which is a member of Interpol and talks about the rule of law, has disregarded Interpol red notices. As a rule, once a red notice is issued, a member country is bound to take the suspect(s) into custody”

Canada yet to act on Interpol notices against Khalistani gangsters - https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.hindustantimes.com/india-ne...

Because India has ridiculous history of making up charges against people whom they don’t like politically. Search “Umar Khalid”.

This changes everything and makes India’s actions seem reasonable. It’s akin to the US taking out an Al-Qaeda member in Yemen or Pakistan.

I'd disagree, and plenty of Indian commentators disagreed at the time as well [0].

Paying hitmen to kill violent idiots is a bad look. There are multiple other levers that could be pushed.

All of this only really started after Lawrence Bishnoi started his gang war in Punjab/Haryana/Delhi/Rajasthan.

There's a lot of shifting alliances and blood being spilled now that politics in the state of Punjab are in a flux after the AAP won and destroyed the entire political status quo of Congress versus SAD/BJP.

My gut as someone who has lived in Surrey and has heard the stories in Gurdawaras and Mandirs is that this is Dawood-Chota Rajan 2.0

[0] - https://theprint.in/opinion/security-code/in-hardeep-singh-n...

Lawrence Bishnoi did claim responsibility for the 2nd killing. But what makes you so sure that the Indian government is contracting the hit squad? The big problem that Canada has is they have not even identified the killer. Even if Bishnoi makes big claims, how are they going to prove them? And then they will have to estabilish the link between GoI and Bishnoi. All that if at all their 'conspiracy theory' that India has a hand in killings holds any water. Which I honestly doubt.

> what makes you so sure that the Indian government is contracting the hit squad

It was reported that Pavan Kumar Rai posted a hit on Nijjar on some deepweb website used to hire assassins.

If someone can find that for me I'd appreciate it because I really don't want to go on a hunt for that citation.

> It was reported that Pavan Kumar Rai posted a hit on Nijjar on some deepweb website used to hire assassins.

If that is the case, I'd have hoped it would be viral by now. But anyhow, they would have to establish the link between the Pavan Kumar Rai's activities and the killer. The killer who they have not identified.

It's similar to when Biden said Russia's Nord stream gas pipelines will be no more if Russia invades Ukraine. When the sabotage was done, no one could blame the US since there was no evidence linking it to them.

India and the US are not in remotely comparable positions geopolitically. Yemen or Pakistan asserting their right to self defense to the UN to justify declaring war on the US would simply be suicide for them, and just another middle eastern country to topple for the US. So the US just informs the UNSC that they are killing Bin Laden on Pakistani soil, and do so in such a way as to give Pakistan plausible justification for not declaring war, since they have no interest in doing so.

If Canada decided that they were going to declare war based on self-defense, before going to the UN, they'd be going to the US and NATO, the most powerful military organizations on Earth. Canada, even just as the US's hat, enjoys the kind of superpower status that India can only fantasize about.

The US is not going to war with India for Canada over this.

"The death of Ayman al-Zawahiri is a step toward a safer world. Canada will keep working with our global partners to counter terrorist threats, promote peace and security, and keep people here at home and around the world safe" -Justin Trudeau

So extraterrestrial killing are fine when certain countries do it?

> extraterrestrial

I knew it, aliens did 9/11!

Whataboutism.

Teaching the masses this word is really an amazing victory by American propagandists.

It can be used to instantly shut down any discussion and win any argument (if only in the eyes of the person using it).

it can only be used to shut down whataboutism

if literally all your arguments and all your discussions depend on your use of whataboutism, the problem and solution lie within yourself: conceive of affirmative arguments supporting your position which aren't logical fallacies, like whataboutism is

Define Whataboutism?

It is my father having a love child with the neighbour's wife while I get a ass whopping for sleeping with the maid.

All jokes aside; I believe the western world set a dangerous precedent with the war on terror and the chickens are coming home to roost. Am fearful of what is to come in the future.

Russia's war on Ukraine may end up emboldening nations to act as they please with regards to dissidents wherever they might be and this is a scary world that we moving into.

Distraction from the relevant point by bringing up cases where the accusee might be construed as having performed the same act as the accused. It's a distraction because it detracts from whether the accused did or didn't do the act. And the matter here is whether India did it; distractions away from this question are either implying that they did it ("so what if I did, you did too"), or an attempt to throw off and confuse the conversations about it.

It is important here because it takes away the moral high ground. It is also important because those who did it previously have not faced any repercussions, so why would anybody hesitate to do this.

I think people who use the word whataboutism do not understand the more difficult concept of hypocrisy. It's more difficult because it requires contextual reasoning.

"Whataboutism" is easy because it's purely syntactic, every time someone says "What about ...", you are allowed to accuse them of it--instead of having to confront, in good faith, an implied accusation of hypocrisy.

It's like Orwellian newspeak, but the new word is less expressive and more likely to confuse the disagreement.

I think people who engage in whataboutism and defend it with cries of "hypocrisy" do not understand the even more difficult concept that, even if you personally think that someone else is a hypocrite, it doesn't make you any less wrong.

Indeed, whataboutism itself is easy because it's purely distractional: "but Y is a hypocrite!" a defender of X may shout, when the topic is not Y, or their hypocrisy, but X, and what X did.

If your argument is that it was okay for X to do the thing, then you should be able to affirmatively say outright "I think it was okay for X to do the thing", and convincingly explain why, on a moral basis, it was okay for X to do the thing, without bringing anyone else into it.

Otherwise, it's like a child whining "but Stevie took a candy bar!" – maybe, maybe not, but that doesn't mean it's okay for you to take one, even if you think that makes someone a hypocrite

Consequentism. What goes around comes around yada yada

Explain this in more details. The outline I gather of your position is that "the US killed Ben Laden on Pakistani territory so India killed someone on Canadian territory, Canada had it coming for what they did to Ben Laden". Fill in the details.

> Fill in the details.

If you harbour terrorists who are wanted by your ostensible partners, don't be surprised if they lose patience and decide to take matters into their own hands.

Does that help?

what makes you think that's okay?

even children are taught that 2 wrongs don't make a right

I'm not saying you were raised wrong though

I don't care how you were raised but killing terrorists is 100% OK.

I don't care how you were raised, but two wrongs don't make a right, and unilateral, extrajudicial, extraterritorial assassinations of political opponents are wrong, even if you shout "terrorist!" while murdering

imagine if such shouting made murder okay, like a secret, magical incantation any arbitrary thug could recite to immunize oneself from guilt - it's a ridiculous concept when you think about it!

> unilateral, extrajudicial, extraterritorial assassinations

Is an assination ever bilateral or judicial?

This is basically the trolley problem: Do you pull the lever and kill terrorist, or do you let him keep bombing movie theatres and organising hits?

I'd say this is different from the trolley problem, because, again, unilateral, extrajudicial, extraterritorial assassinations of political opponents are wrong, even if you shout "terrorist!" while murdering

they are always wrong

it doesn't matter if you also did a good thing, it doesn't even matter if the good thing was related: you aren't allowed to do the wrong thing, period, even if you really, really, really want to, even if you think you have a good reason to break the rules and do wrong

and as to your first question, eh, could be for some examples, but it'd be a distraction, as the answer doesn't matter, because the case we're discussing definitely wasn't either one

> Hopefully this is all false

Not hopefully for Trudeau. If he has no incontrovertible proof that the international community would accept, then this move should be the end of his political career in Canada. It won't be, but it should be.

There's been seven or eight major scandals that should have been the end of his political career, but because of certain uncomfortable political realities he is immovable.

He would have to voluntarily retire from his party and politics altogether...and unfortunately it seems like he likes power.

The allegations is tied to FVEY credibility at this point.

>and 38y later someone related to the movement being (allegedly) assassinated by the Indian government on Canadian soil.

There was another "suspicious" event this morning (quotes because I don't understand the politics enough to make a judgement):

https://www.business-standard.com/india-news/sukha-duneke-wh...

The source definitely has a view, but "one person's freedom fighter..." and all that.

It’s irrelevant if they’re a freedom fighter or a terrorist. Extra judicial killings are not justified.

I’m not sure if this particular killing was done by India, but either way it’s not great timing.

It is if the nation harboring the terrorist refuses to cooperate with an interpol order related to murder and the person is actively killing politicians in your country. What exactly was India supposed to do since Canada refused to work with them? Sit on their hands and watch their elected reps get assassinated?

The accepted response is escalating the situation on the diplomatical level. Imposing sanctions if necessary. Getting other countries impose them as well. And, in extreme cases, trying to get the UN Security Council authorize military action.

Well they killed him and haven’t had any real consequences so I would say killing him was also an accepted response. It was accepted by everyone realistically able to do anything about the situation.

Not facing real immediate consequences is not the same as acceptance. Especially when we are talking about acceptance in the moral/normative sense.

Besides, you should wait at least a decade or two before talking about consequences. Things don't change that quickly in international relations, because the stakes are so big. But they do change, as you can see from the relations between Russia and the West.

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