NSA Ajit Doval Absent from PM Modi-Biden Meeting, Stayed Back for J&K Election, Say Officials

Explanation on the National Security Advisor’s schedule comes amidst speculation over the Pannun case summons by a New York court even as allegations by Sikh groups could loom over PM’s three-day visit

National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval stayed back in India to deal with the security situation arising from the ongoing Jammu and Kashmir election and other “domestic issues”, officials said. The officials dismissed speculation that Mr. Doval dropped out of the visit due to a summons issued by a New York court, even as the Khalistan issue and allegations from Sikh groups against the government appeared to loom over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s three-day U.S. visit.

The summons, in response to a civil suit filed by Khalistani activist and Sikhs for Justice founder Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, followed by the introduction of a newly drafted Act against ‘Transnational Repression’ that names India in the American Senate, as well as a meeting between the U.S. White House and National Security Council officials and Sikh activists from groups that have campaigned against the Modi government, has led to questions over whether the U.S. government was sending a “sharp message” to New Delhi, diplomats said.

Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a Canadian American citizen and a leader of the Khalistani organization Sikhs for Justice, filed a civil action lawsuit at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on September 17, demanding damages for the conspiracy allegedly hatched by some officials of the Government of India to assassinate him. 

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The court has summoned the Government of India, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, former chief of the Research and Analytical Wing Samant Goel, Vikram Yadav, who was identified as an agent of the intelligence agency, and Nikhil Gupta, a businessman now incarcerated in the US for allegedly trying to hire a hitman to kill him in New York. New Delhi dismissed the lawsuit as “completely unwarranted and unsubstantiated imputations” and underlined the SFJ leader’s extremist antecedents.

A source in New Delhi, however, said that the prime minister’s National Security Advisor did not travel to the US due to Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir.