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Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Nolan.
They called me Ed. We're joined with our guest super producer Max the freight Train Williams. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here.
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Calendars are made up, but a happy New Year, fellow conspiracy realist, that's right through the magic of editing and post production. This is the last episode the three of us will be recording together in twenty twenty three. Remember, just because a calendar flips a page, it doesn't mean the world suddenly stops. That's why tonight's episode is about a growing global concern that we learned about several months
ago and have been keeping an eye on. Why are world powers multiple world powers accusing the Nation of India of running assassination rings And I think a fellow conspiracy realist of ours deserves a shout out.
Oh yeah, big shout out to head Master who called in back in mid August of this year and talk to us about the assassination of a guy named Hardeep Nijar that we're going to talk about today, and that was a serious rabbit hole, head master that we went down that has now led to new developments that this is the reason why we're covering it today in a full episode.
Here are the facts, folks. As we have noted in the past, India is huge. Check out our episode on the Line of Actual Control for a brief look at just the amazing, deep, rich history of India and all the misconceptions that the West often carries about this beautiful country. It's huge. Maybe not in terms of geographical size, but it is absolutely huge in terms of the number of people who live there. There are so many people living in India.
Dense, dense af with over one point four billion people occupying only three point three million square kilometers or one million, two hundred and sixty nine thousand, three hundred and forty five square miles, it is the world's second largest population jammed into only the seventh largest country.
That's some mind blowing maths right there.
Just by way of comparison, the United States is around nine million square kilometers or three thousand, six hundred and eighteen seven hundred and eighty three square miles. Thank you Ben for the conversions here, and only has a population of around three point three million.
Oh, you're right off, Mike Matt credit where it's due. You raised an excellent point. India is technically neck and neck with China for the largest world population, and I believe they were projected in twenty twenty three to have a slight overtake in China. But I don't know whether that has been officially confirmed or whether we're still playing the estimates game, but.
It's probably estimates. I've just got it right because I doubt there was some kind of census that happened this year.
It's tough to count a lot of people. And also, Noel shout out for that comparison, because that comparison is quite clever. It does hold. We're talking about not just
the land, but the amount of people I had. And this may be controversial, but a lot of my friends who live in India or or part of the Indian diaspora who have talked to me about this, more than one person has told me the biggest difference in India versus America that they see in terms of people is that wherever they go, they are just a bunch of people.
Makes sense.
But Ben Matt, why is all this important for the topic of this evening's story.
Well, I would say, I would just say it's because India, like the United States, has a bunch of states within it. Right, It's not just one government, one power is It's like the United States where there is one government right in Washington,
that is like the federal government. But each state within India also has its own governing powers, and a lot of the different states and regions have their own wants and needs that may be a little different from what the entirety of India or the federal government wants.
Wouldn't you say, almost more so even than the way our state governments work, Like the identity of the states within India are more pronounced, perhaps even than here in the United States.
That's a bit of a difficult I mean, that's a bit of a difficult I think comparison. I don't know whether we could say that authoritatively because we have not lived in India, but it's definitely true that we have to understand, regardless ofbout maybe portrayed in the news in the West. The nation of India is far from a monolith.
Twenty eight states, eight Union territories. These literal billions of people obviously don't agree on everything, and there are a lot of fractures, internal instabilities with the government and the culture, tons of dissenting voices. To your point, Matt Contradictory aims secessionist parties, which do occur in the US as well. The US, of course, has a vested interest in not only containing secessionist parties, but making sure they don't get too much of a public platform.
Oh completely agree, I think, Well, see, I don't know if this is accurate or not, but this is the way I'm viewing it. In the US, I'm often seeing those like we need to split Texas off from the United States, or we should split you know, California off and make it a separate region or a separate country. Those are often, at least from my view, not religiously motivated. Right in the case of India, I think one of the major issues we're dealing with here is the state
of Punjab. Right that are there are many people who have formed movements at least to try and separate the state of Punjab off from India to create its own state. And it's religious. It's based on religion, correct.
Well.
Yeah, and religion in this case could be considered such a close Venn diagram with culture that the two indeed may be inseparable. We also have to remember that, unlike the United States, the nation of India did experience a partition in nineteen forty seven, the dissolution of the British Raj led to Pakistan and India, and they have been beefed up ever since with one of the most dramatic border openings and crossings that occurs today. Check it out in person if you get a chance to see it.
If not, go to YouTube. It's worth it.
I think that's maybe where my perception of the very strong identities of the various Indian states comes from. It is just that there are these different religions, maybe in a way that isn't quite something we're used to hear in the United States. You know, it's a very important part of these individual you know, parts of the country, more so I think than we have here, where there may be aren't quite as many options in terms of like varying state to state.
Yeah, and look, the every country is its own story, right, just like every person, but on a macro cosmic or macropolar scale, and India, like China, is struggling continually to meain domestic unity. To your question, Noel, I think it would be. I think it's fair to point out that just the discrepancy between population size is a huge factor in this. And there's also, of course the shadow of colonialism.
A bunch of different empires that existed were all grouped together by the British and they said, okay, now this is India, and look we I feel like we have to say it for the fellow policy wonks in the crowd. But the fact that India, China, and to another degree probably pretty soon the US struggled to maintain domestic unity. It is a known thing. It's led to a running dark joke in academia, where we love dark jokes. You'll hear the statement that India is the world's largest democracy.
That is true. You will also hear the statement that because it's the world's largest democracy, it is effectively the best argument against the idea of democracy.
That's interesting. Yeah, yeah, I don't want to get too deep into guys, but the discussions we've had in the past about governments and the way they function and how
that changes as you increase in area and population. Right, Like we're talking about huge conquering armies that would move through when there was an empire, you know, in ages past, and how difficult it was to do that very thing, right, to basically engulf entire cultures and populations into your new thing that you're introducing to them, and then maintain control in that region while you still run your thing at your capital and all your major industrial areas or I
guess not industrial then just the places where you make money, and then trying to get everybody to agree that this is how how life should be and these are the rules we should all live by. That sounds insane when you say it.
Out loud, Well, yeah, it does, and it does sound conspiratorial because it is. Like, the reason there's so many problems in a lot of African countries is because European powers purposely sowed chaos. They put different communities that existed for thousands of years together and at the same time
against one another. So, as strange as it does sound to say out loud, certain powerful forces profit from internal dissent from chaos so long as they can ultimately control that chaos, and that leads to a lot of you know, immortal technique. Not for nothing is correct when he says and beat me here, Max, You've the Middle East and gave birth to a demon like that, he's referring to that practice of sowing chaos and forcing domestic like forcing
insurmountable domestic tensions. And look, you're right, that is a rabbit hole, isn't it.
It is because it applies to South America, Latin America, sure, Caribbean like everywhere.
Yeah, and Southeast Asia as well. Like so, India also has plenty of external struggles because India is a huge deal, not just in terms of people power. It's got a growing rivalry with China because they're two very powerful neighbors that live right next door to each other. It's got geopolitical power grabs going on, economic activity on the ground skirmishes. Please please please. The name sounds boring, but check out
the episode on the line of actual control. It does matter, and it is frightening.
And they're getting into the space game too, right, yes, sir, yeah, just becoming a super player in technology and innovation as well as X really truly beginning to have some big success and exporting what had typically been more of a regional thing with.
Bollywood films like R R R.
I believe one the Oscar for Best Song, which is embarrassing. Frankly, that movie deserved, absolutely incredible, But you know, typically Bollywood films have been more a thing that people that are from that community, maybe live in the United States would be more familiar with. In the area that I live, there's the mall called the South to Cab Mall that shows Bollywood movies on the regular, but there is a very large book population of Indian people who live in
that part of town. But yeah, R was absolutely kind of an example of that really breaking through into the mainstream.
Can make a similar comparison to K pop.
Oh yeah, I just saw some K pop group I couldn't tell you what it was at the Jingle Ball. It was great though, it was amazing. But with India, they're doing the things that we've talked about in the past about how you exert external control as a country, right. One of those main things is exporting your culture, right, and that's I think some of that we've talked about in the past. That's what they're doing. I just want to make sure we remember India had that successful lunar
mission when Russia's mission failed very recently. So that is a again a major step one that the it's not landing human beings on the Moon the way the US did and had that big global Hurrah moment I guess or whatever.
You cause it is easy, But it wasn't that.
But it was still a successful lunar mission, right, And that's a big deal.
Yes, yeah, And the it speaks to it speaks to India's growing role as a tech giant and as to be honest, as an expansionist power. Expansionist power carries some mean connotations, but we don't mean those mean connotations.
It does mean they don't want to give away parts of themselves, right right.
Well, who does nobody's really Countries historically don't have consensual fire sails on territory.
Right.
But there is something, there's very exciting thing we're going to get to in twenty twenty four about the land that nobody wants even now in this human crowded world, terra nullius. I believe it's called.
This Is it just a dead zone or something?
Several well, it's several.
Several.
Some of them are dead zones like desert stuff with the arable land, and then some of them are areas where logistics of infrastructure are tricky. And then some of them are just land as leverage, land as ponds in larger negotiations. And speaking of larger negotiations, this is what we're setting up here. We know that India is modernizing
and it is a brilliant, beautiful country. Like any other country, it is imperfect, but it is becoming a more powerful force on the world stage, and as such, naturally it will seek recognition in the global order. Getting that recognition it's like getting your own country. It's a tricky endeavor, somewhere between an art and a science. There's no real
playbook on how to do this. And because there's no real playbook, every single country you can think of that you might think of as a global player, no exceptions, no hyperbole, every single one has done some incredibly horrific, sketchy stuff in the pursuit of that power. Shout out to Chinese repression of domestic rights and communities which continues today. We might not get into we might not pass customs for some of the episodes we've recorded in that regard.
Shout out to CIA led coups from the US nineteen fifty for Guatemala, we see you, uh. And then the previously mentioned European colonialism. The question becomes how far will India go to maintain its domestic status quo, to twell descent and to further expand to seek power. According to the US, Canada and members of the very scary global intelligence community, this country is literally killing people, not just on Indian soil, but across the planet.
What are we.
Talking about while we got black baged? This is the end of the episode. Is the end of the show. We're not even doing ad breaks.
We're we're telling you this from the bag itself.
From the bag. We're reporting live from the Kittie. No, We'll we'll keep going until we get shut down, but we'll pause for an ad break, hopefully from the India Tourism Board. Here's where it gets crazy.
So when we're when we're talking about this stuff and potentially a country assassinating people, I think just let's quickly make a distinction there, because we're going to explore whether or not this was some kind of the CIA like assassination, like something that an internal organization or governmental organization in India is carrying out assassinations with operatives that they basically
control right and run and pay. Or is it some kind of sell within one of those organizations, like a breakoff group from one of those or is it an independent thing being carried out from the state of India. These are all big questions that we're going to be looking at because I think that's a big deal, right if it's a CIA in the US, at least, if it's a CIA sponsored assassination, that's very different from let's say an individual business person that hired an assassin, right.
Yeah, just so, And we are going to have to dive into those possibilities listed there. The accusation of assassination, of conspiracy, they're not coming from Loan Gunman esque wing nuts posting on four Chan. And uh, I'm just putting that in there as a shout out to x files. I recently rewatched some of those older episodes and the ones that aren't tech centric episodes hold up very well. Ones there tech centric you know they've got their issues.
Don't don't one of you guys or both maybe have a copy of that poster that a listener made where we were super imposed Aaron Cooper onto the loan Gunman.
Yeah, there used to be one right there, but yeah we've got one.
Okay, And thank you Coop if you're if you're hearing that, I hope you're well and great work. As always. He's uh, he's a legend in the game. So these aren't just you know, Reddit lower four chan type folks saying this, and they're not a bunch of Charlie Days putting red string together in a mail room corkboard. One of the first accusations that go public is from the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau. It's September eighteenth, just a few
a few months ago, back in twenty twenty three. Trudeau says there are credible allegations the agents of the Indian government carried out an assassination and they killed a Canadian national, Hardeep Singh Nijar, who we mentioned at the top here,
a prominent Sikh activist. He was shot dead outside of a temple in Surrey, British Columbia, just a month before that announcement June eighteenth, twenty twenty three, and the timing here is important because pretty quickly after the murder or after the body is found, the leader of Canada is saying, we know who did it and it's not just some dude, it's some dude or dudes on the order of a foreign power.
Well, and I think the timing is the most important thing, Ben, because it like three months, It is a pretty good amount of time for whatever, you know, Canadian intelligence organization to do their thing and find out everything they can and then come back with the report to then have you know, the Prime minister go oh wow, I need to say something about this. And I mean three months
is exist. It's just perfect, I think for it to actually be an investigation, not just a prime minister coming out for some kind of geopolitical reasons making this kind of accusation, which I don't think he would do anyway, right, there must be sand to it for him to come out on the world stage and say something like this, or at.
Least he thought there were sand I mean, maybe, you know, the think is a lot of genuine conspiracies have boring bureaucracy to them, so maybe they add like a net ninety day invoice and they had to make sure the invoice got fulfilled and then they're like, oh, okay, they did do it. So the that is a joke for like two people in an account department. But let's let's talk about how they found him, how did how did he die?
So law enforcement found that Najar, in his truck parked outside of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gudwara Temple had died from apparent gunshot once uh And Najar was the president of that very same temple, which is located in Surrey, British Columbia. Najar was a Canadian national, but he was involved in a lot of Sikh activist activity and he was also a secessionist who advocated for the creation of a separate country for Sikhs independent from India itself in
the current state of Punjab. In this proposed state would have been called Khalistan.
Yes, so there's a lot to unpact there. So he he was killed, he was shot like outside work. Basically where were he and which is you know, could be anything, right, Maybe he had an enemy nobody knew about. Maybe it was local politics, you know, or what it could have been. There's so many reasons exactly, so that that is I
think the first thing we need to think about. The other thing is Surrey, BC or British Columbia is just it's it's like a suburb of Vancouver, right so, just north of the northwest border of Washington State and Canada there, so again pretty close to US soil and nothing that has that has anything to do with it. But uh
Njar had his own thing going on there. But he was also apparently, at least according to the Indian government, he was really influential in the stuff Noel was just talking about there about wanting wanting the Punjab state to secede, right like, according to the Indian government, he was a big player doing all kinds of crazy stuff on Indian soil, even though he out in Canada.
Right he was working remotely. But with terrorism is the idea, And it's because of his affiliation with the Colistan Tiger Force, which is a militant, militant secessionist group. That part is inarguable, that is true. But he was also wanted actively by the Indian government. And we'll get to the Indian perspective in a minute. But the Indian government had for years and years and years said this guy and these following guys are terrorists, They are a danger to the national
security of our country. Why on earth are you giving them a free pass? Like in their minds, it's similar to you know, it's similar to if Ben Laden was living in Germany and running a mosque and you wrote to you, wrote to Americael or something repeatedly and said, hey, this guy is responsible for hundreds of deaths, go get him. And then they said, oh, well, you know noted, I
hear you, and then didn't do anything. So the Indian government was very frustrated with this for quite some time leading up to the murder, particularly something called their Research and Analysis WING. That is RAW. It's not a wrestling term. India's raw. Raw is India's external intelligence agency raw dogging it well.
And they were creating all of these things called fi rs from I mean we're talking like twenty eighteen, twenty twenty. They were creating their first information reports is what they were creating, is what they call them. And they were reports about all kinds of activities. Most of it was like him having surveillance done on particular like government groups or military groups, and they believed that he was planning. Najar was planning an attack of some sort on one of those government groups.
Right, and this is based on the actions of the Kalistan separatist movement in the eighties and nineties, in which thousands of people did die, there were terrorist attacks. Najarre had also been warned.
Quick question, college town, does that exist or is this just a conceptual the right that's so.
He had also been warned by the intelligence community of Canada several times. Officially, they said, look, there are active death threats against you. He was aware of this and he had also been He had also been given the chance to respond to accusations of the Indian government. He spoke to Canadian press and he said, look, I am not doing these things like, yes, I am an activist for Sikh ights. Yes, I do believe that the Sikh people deserve a homeland, a state of their own. But
I'm not ordering terrorist attacks. I am not the monster here, I'm not the bad guy.
But it is crazy because then, as an observer, everybody else on the planet has to go Okay, Well, I either believe him in his words and that he's telling the truth, or I believe the Indian government and what they're saying and that they're telling the truth, and it just it puts I think it puts the every third party that is not either that huge organization in state government or an individual man. You just have to kind of decide what you believe.
Two categorical statements that contradict one another. Yeah, yeah, there's not really a third way.
Well, and speaking of statements contradicting one another, the believe the Indian government, you know, vehemently denied those allegations leveled by Trudeau, calling them absurd, basically walking them up to some sort of political agenda, perhaps the smear campaigns. I'm sort and we'll get back to the statements a bit later, but why don't we continue on with the history and the timeline.
Yes, so, the World Seek Organization of Canada, it is one of the first groups to say, don't believe the stories, even before Trudeau makes a statement. They say he was assassinated. Najar was assassinated by the nation of India upon their orders. And they said, what's more, he's only one of several people who were killed. And there's some stuff we talked
about briefly off air. We'd love your opinions. Fellow conspiracy realist the WSO World Sikh Organization says that over the past few months leading up to Najar's murder, other pro Colistan activists have been murdered or died in suspicious circumstances. And again part in our pronunciations here we are not native speakers. They mentioned people like Peramijit Singh Panjhoir over in Pakistan who was shot by two gunmen on a morning walk.
And then that guy was allegedly associated with the Kalistan Commando Force, which was which India, at least the government of India categorizes as a terrorist organizationization. Yeah.
Yeah, And while you're noticing here, folks, is something that you can see all the world around. One country, you may designate something a terrorist organization with just cause, with provable murders and acts of chaos, but other countries don't agree, right, Yeah.
Well, in that organization believes it is a liberating force of some kind fighting for good.
Freedom fighters, terrorists, what's your perspective? Yeah, And the other one, it's a little more controversial, is Avtar Singh Kanda in Britain. Avtar sing Kanda is the death in what they call mysterious circumstances. He's thirty e. He's thirty five in June of twenty twenty three, and he dies following a diagnosis of acute Mylloyd leukemia, which, if that is an assassination, does not seem like a very straightforward way to murder someone long game.
Yeah, yeah, well then I mean impossible people, I mean, right, I mean, if you could touch the hospital, if they're in a hospital at that point.
Yeah, it depends on whether it fake the diagnosis to have it be a cover story.
You could just have someone who's not really who's You could have someone who works at the hospital do some shenanigans.
Yeah, I mean, I touch it exactly. If he's in the hospital for that the cancer of the blood and undergoing treatment, right, you could kill him in another way. The police there in Birmingham, where he was when he died, are not investigating it because they're like, no, this is
not suspicious, We're good to go. But that guy again, just to keep adding this, called himself at least referred to himself as the chief of the Kalistan Liberation Force, another group designated as a terrorist organization.
So you can see already the roots of the Kalistan movement are deep. They are multipolar, right, and they have a lot of support amid the diaspora. Now, having support amid a diaspora does not mean everybody who wants a Kalistan around is a terrorist. Far from it. Their people are saying, hey, why can't we have our thing too,
you know, and that's a very human question. The history also goes deeper because if you look at India's Punjab state, one of the larger states the twenty eight states of India, then you see that it is majority Seek, just barely. It's about fifty eight percent Seek, thirty nine percent Hindu self reporting. And that's why there was this violent Kalistan movement there, or this series of honestly just objectively horrific attacks. And today the movement's most vocal advocates are Punjabi diaspora.
And India has again complained often repeatedly before and after those events of the eighties and nineties. They have complained about activities of what they say are Sikh hardliners, and they say, look, you know, you guys might not be reporting it in the western news, but these folks are planning horrible, horrible things, bombings of civilians right airports, hospitals,
bombing airplanes and so on. And in March, Indian authorities called Canada's top diplomat in the country because Sikh protesters were gathered outside India's diplomatic mission in Canada. So it goes, it goes much deeper than one person dead in a pickup truck, right, And then there were more accusations. Right. Maybe maybe there's fog, war, smoking, mirrors, pomp and circumstance. Maybe Trudeau is being told to say these things for
some ulterior motive. Maybe it's just one guy's allegations, one whistle in the dark. As you mentioned previously. The Indian government responded said this stuff is politically motivated. It's absurd. So they're saying there's an ulterior motive. But if we continue the timeline, we'll see that Canada, when they go public with these claims, everything goes wrong with their relationship.
They're expelling diplomats left and right. Some of the trades deal stuff they were working on, which doesn't get widely reported. That hits a roadblock, and then a bombshell drops. In November. Uncle Sam tries to have off the books conversation and gets caught by the.
Media so the United States actually claims that they've discovered a very similar plan to kill another activist that was stopped a dual US Canadian citizen by the name of Gorpa Twant Singh Pannun, who very similarly to U Nijar, was a prominent Sikh separatist, and the US government claims that an Indian government official paid one hundred thousand dollars for a plot to assassinate Pannun.
Doesn't that seem a little.
A little like like like a bit of a deal one hundred k or is that a standard?
That's a lot of money.
Ye, a lot, and there's a lot of money, but to kill somebody.
I thought we were thinking maybe uh, upwards of that, but maybe I don't know what the going rate is for an assassination these days.
Well it.
That sounds weird, Like I know, I don't want to seem like I know too much about this around speaking with too much authority. I have seen allegations in the news for murder for higher plots that range from five thousand dollars to you know, ten fifteen, twenty five thousand dollars. This is actually actually really high.
Oa to what that again, that's very interesting and helpful.
But if it's at a government level that you know, those are the allegations that somehow, at a government level, there was going to be one hundred thousand dollars procured, procured to pay somebody to pull off a high level assassination.
High level. Also for this rate, you'd be getting a real pro.
It's also the smallest amount of money that sounds like a lot of.
Money exist, true exactly, that is true, exactly.
So when when this kind of stuff happens, if they're the if there is a government tie here, right, if you follow the money, then what this would indicate is it's coming from a slush funds coming from some kind of thing that gets misallocated in the budget. Right, and who knows, maybe they said, look, send us an invoice for one hundred grand. It's net ninety day turnaround. So you'll get the money at that point.
But again, you just had a high enough level person with enough money, right, you could work that money through and wouldn't have to touch government ever.
Or if there was somebody who was working with you middlemanning it through the government, then they give you three hundred thousand dollars, right, and you're a criminal. So a criminals like high profit margins, right, whether they're on Wall Street or in the backstreets of your city, criminals like high profit margins. So we just know that Uncle Sam is claiming this, and they're not saying approximately, they're saying exactly. And when they say this, this is the important part.
They are not initially public about these claims. The world only knows that the US said this because of some badass journalists led by the Financial Times. True investigative journalist, your local investigative journalist is almost certainly underpaid, is almost certainly unappreciated. So next time you hang out with them, you should pay for the coffee, just just to help them out, right, and uh, in.
Cases like this, they're they're putting themselves in harm's way oftentimes, you know, or and danger of retribution.
Yeah, and also be careful of hanging out with journalists, and be careful if you're a journalist. We just read a story and listened to some reporting about pegasusts being on reporters phones in several countries, like major newspapers.
It's and then known it's I know, but yeah.
But just the infectious nature of being somebody that likes to bring truth out into the world to the light. Uh it seems it seems like a dangerous.
Time well sporting several reviews we're disinfo. So I think we're fine.
No, I'm not worried about I mean an actual investigative journalist. Jeez.
So uh So the White House had to respond once.
Uh.
Financial Times, in a multi partner investigation, leaked this. What they said off the record is they told the Indian government, we have information that links you to a attempt to murder a dual US Canadian citizen. It's not even an Indian national, not that that should matter. We're supposed to
prevent assassinations on our soil. So when this news comes out, the White House has to say something and it falls to another unappreciated job, having to be the spokesperson for the White House, having to go in front of the press club. I don't you know. I'm sure these folks get paid more than independent journalists, but boy, they have to take a lot of You think the customer service repic Comcast has it bad, These people have it worse.
Adrian Watson is the spokesperson who takes the hit on this and says paraphrasing here says okay, yes, the Financial Times is right. We did speak to officials of the Indian government about this, and they expressed surprise and concern when we told them. They're like, what what's going on? OMG, you guys, and Watson said, we're treating this with seriousness. We're talking to the senior most levels about these attempts. And then later we know an indictment, an indictment was unsealed,
not an in sealment was undicted. An indictment was unsealed in Manhattan's Federal court, and it finally named some names. There's a guy named Nikhil Gupta fifty two, an Indian national who had lived in India, who has been charged with murder for hire and conspiracy to commit murder for hire. In case you're wondering, we don't think he's going to be able to use that one hundred grand for legal fees.
No, I don't know. I do not.
I don't think that loophole is still a thing.
Nope. Just to go back to the just the concept of the White House coming out and having to make an official statement on this, right, it's such it's such sticky territory for them. As we've talked about in the past and as you may have seen in the news, the United States has really been positioning a close relationship with India for all kinds of geopolitical reasons, right, And one of the main things is that it's a partner that is right there, literally adjacent to Russia and China.
Just hanging out and having them as a close ally is extremely important for so many reasons to the US. And then to have to come out and say, yeah, it does seem like the country is assassinating people like over here, everything's fine. I mean, it's really a weird thing.
We did talk, but it was like, you know, they said, everything but mission's mission siloing, right where you have those off the books conversations and then attempt to like make your off the book conversation the world you wanted to be without without inc looting the other people important to that conversation, which would be the people who were trying not to die, the public that is paying for your job, et cetera. India signals that they are investigating. They said,
we're going to release a public statement. Don't worry, We're as surprised as you. Financial Time said its sources did not say if the US was It did not say whether the US got to India or got word to India before the assassination happened, and then the assassination was abandoned because it was still just planning stages.
That would make sense, right if they were like, hey, we see you doing this, and don't do this. We're trying to make other things happen.
Right, right, we got a good thing going here, Lodi, or if it was foiled by the FBI. All that the press can say for sure, All that the public can say for sure right now is that this investigation right The release from the Financial Times and the conversation that the US had with India appears to have occurred around when the Prime Minister of India, Neurendra Modi, visited
Joe Biden in June of twenty twenty three. So again, at the time, I've been talking about a lot of stuff, and then they had a Hey, by the way, are you guys trying to kill some people?
Yeah, that's exactly what it was been. Hey, Yeah, while we grab some tea, just bring it up just casually. So okay. That Financial Times article was released November twenty
second in twenty twenty three, So yeah, it totally makes sense. Again, I'm just thinking about those timelines of investigation, right, It's exactly how long it would take, ben I think from those conversations and when it would have occurred, when the amount of time it would have taked for somebody to choose to release information or come forward with information for
the paper to do the writing and their investigation. It's really gosh, really interesting that that, Sorry, just the idea of those powerful people were together, and I always imagine, I have this picture in my mind of state leaders talking to each other and I've never actually seen it in person, like that kind of closed door, just chilling shooting, shooting the stuff, you know, with two extremely powerful people, and just how much of a dance that must be
with the things that each one knows about the other one because of their various intelligence arms or whatever.
When when both people in conversation are lying and they both know they're lying, the content of the conversation gets very close to the truth, you know what I mean. It's it's a very strange double game, but and altering. These guys are rarely alone when they're speaking. It's it's pretty extraordinary, which is why the Russians is troubling, but the US Russian conversations years back. But the other thing here that I'm sure you're already thinking as well, Matt,
is who was this leak co signed? Because whenever an official from the US who cannot be named or is anonymous is talking to the New York Times, there is a I would say, just spidey sense, there's a more than fifty percent chance that someone greenlit the leak and was like, contact our boy or contact our person, our people, and just don't put your name on it so it looks like a leak, so that we can say, oh, wow, the press is really good. And here's an inside look
at the way the sausage is made. Yeah, it's a it's a chess move. But there's the other thing too, like if this so they're already there's already a lot of obstifcation, right, obsicication. We know that regardless of how this news got out. Unlike many other homicides or tempted murders, these activities carry some very heavy baggage because the US government is desperately working to have a bulwark or balance against China, as China continues to grow and expand India
is the number one draft pick for that. And now you get to a disturbing cost benefit calculus. The appeal of being a citizen in any country is the idea that the government will protect you on some level in the grand Yeah, in the grand scheme of things, though, is a nation? How much will a nation risk for one person's life? Would a nation, any nation risk the future of the global order for one person, especially if some people already think that person is a terrorist?
Oh it's that greater good man. One person doesn't mean.
Jack Well, well, I don't know.
I depending on the person, perhaps, I suppose, but your average you know, citizens kind of special.
It's just so weird because if that person was extremely valuable for some kind of economic reason, I think that one person could be like held up right.
I think that leverage for sure, like Ellon Gonzalez became very important because Gonzalez was able to be leveraged in the US political discourse.
Dude, exactly. But this is all just taking me back to think about how these two guys that we've talked about, Najar the person who was shot back in June, and then Panun the person who was this murder plot was aimed at, right that survived, didn't get killed. Back on June twenty first of twenty twenty three, the Wire wrote a story and in that story, just a couple of sentences here quote Najar was a declared terrorist in India,
wanted in several cases. He was the chief of that tiger forest that you talked about, ben and he worked closely with the Seekhs for Justice leader Panun. So it names Panuon and Najar together in the same article after Najar gets assassinated. I just to me, that is so interesting that these two guys both targeted and they're being talked about together in June around the same time when this plot is probably happening taking place against Panun.
Curiouser and curiouser, let's pause for a word from our sponsor, and then to be objective and fair, we're going to go to the Indian perspective. We've returned, all right, So we've talked a lot about the ins and outs of this, the questions, some of which are still going to be very difficult to answer. I think for an interminable out of time. The Indian government has a weird, somewhat dichotomous approach to these claims. I mean, they're not mutually exclusive.
You guys, tell me what you think. On the one hand, officials, high level officials, deny any knowledge of any shenanigans, And originally they said they were scandalized by the Canadian accusations, absurd, politically motivated. If you have proof, show us the proof, and then that will help us help you. But on the other hand, they're saying, look, Canada, uncle Sam, you're providing refuge for enemies of our state. We warned you repeatedly.
You never ever listened. The implication being, so, what are we to do to protect our people? How far would we go? What is one life in our costs benefit calculus, or even a couple lives? I mean, I was thinking it might be helpful, Like do we flip the players in the roles here? If we do, we see a crazy precedent, because the United States can, has, and absolutely will go into a sovereign country proactively eliminate anyone it
feels is a threat past a certain threshold. And the US isn't usually too quiet about it either.
Guys, because in order for the US to actually get their hands on this person that they were investigating, Gupta, the person who's charged with you know, the murder for higher plot. Didn't they use extradition and like go to another country that then cooperated with them to get the person they wanted.
Yeah, he was in Uh, he's currently in the Pancrack prison Pncrock prison in Prague. I think he's still there as of December. But yeah, they're gonna get him.
Well, yeah, and he was. He was in the Czech Republic when he was arrested, so like and there there was a bilateral treaty but or an extradition treaty between two countries to get their hands on this guy. So I don't know. That's just the kind of weird thing where it does feel like playing different playing with playing the same game with different rules.
What do we say Earlier? The US says you want the smoke? Turns out you're in the smoking section wherever you live. And that still doesn't answer who actually did it? Who killed this guy in Canada? Right? Who killed Najar? Who are they related to these other deaths? Is it one entity planning these things? They successfully conspired in one case?
Did they almost succeed in another. We have to say, given the historical precedent our earlier series on targeted killings and assassinations, we can walk through some hypothetical possibilities and maybe the plausibility. Number one fair question, what if the Indian government is aware of this at the top level and does not care. That's very unlikely. That's not how black ops work. I mean, look at you or wherever you live, however you feel about your leaders and politicians.
If you don't live in Russia, then civilian and political leadership has a series of firewalls between these activities. This is why, like this is why when your government, any government, gets up to Shenanigan's, the leaders of that organization can technically be telling the truth. Well when they say, well, holy cow, man, I didn't know that happened either, that's crazy.
Indeed, another option is that a faction of the Indian intelligence community may have triggered perhaps the poor choice of words this, or knew something was coming and helpfully kind of turned away to well bird of the sea here, or provided some kind of perhaps even help.
This is both plausible and plausible.
We can call it plausible because the intelligence communities often act with this siloed kind of level of autonomy that verges on like you were saying earlier, planned by a different set of rules. According to them, you know, the business as usual, but to the outside it could appear to be criminal activities, right.
Yeah, so okay, forgive me bro In my mind, if if this person was targeted right from the top levels of an intelligence community, wouldn't that assignment basically go to one or two people or you know.
Yes, yeah, it would go to typically what would happen is you want to be very buttoned up and close to the chest, so it would go to one or two people, and then from there maybe only one person knows who gets the contract or you know, the subcontract, et cetera, et cetera, which one is as many shells as ideally one as many shells as possible, but really every one of those, every new piece you add, presents countless vulnerabilities or possibilities for exposure, so you want to
keep it like quiet. The best secret is the secret no one knows, right, So I mean, there's another badger in the bag though here, Matt, which is this murder? Or we have to say it in the interest of airness before we get to the really juicy stuff. This murder, other mysterious deaths, attempted murder. There is the possibility that they're all unrelated, you know, and these people carrying and participating in the movement for seekh rights and independence is
a coincidence. That is highly unlikely. That is utterly impossible. Highly unlikely is far too kind because of the disturbing thing the badger just mentioned. Five eyes, five eyes is in the mix. Five eyes is how the US and Canada know what they know. I guarantee it.
Let's just recap everybody on five eyes. That's the United States, Canada, not Mexico, United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia.
And New Zealand.
New Zealand, and they all share intelligence. The extent to which they share one of intelligence, We're unsure which players give eighty five percent, which ones give twenty five percent? Who knows they all?
I think they all sort of share choice pieces of the puzzle when convenient for them.
I think that's exactly how to do it.
Yep.
Some light reading on the subject can be found in these stuff they Don't want you to know.
Book illustrated by the One and Only Admiral turbo nick you and so yeah, five Eyes is scary, folks. Does your religious, political, demographic stuff, your ideologies of choice, they do not matter. This is a very This is like the closest version to Big Brother in real life in terms of public public state craft. Right, private industries may be up to some other stuff, but Five Eyes touches
them too. It is simply reality. So they we know Five Eyes is involved because an unnamed Canadian official said, we drew our conclusions based on intel provided by a major ally a member of the Five Eyes Intelligence.
Sharing Alliance, Like yep, checks out.
Checks out, because what can't those guys touch, you know, other than firewalled other than firewalled hardware, for like Iranian nuclear cap abilities.
Yeah, but okay, so it makes me wonder if there were actually if there was an agent or two or actual human assets from one of these Five Eyes organizations in the Czech Republic checking up on Gupta before he
was arrested, which it always i'll I don't. I always wonder about not jurisdiction, that's not the right word for it, but just operating in another country that has an extradition treaty signed with the US and they're you know, investigating a murder, a murder for higher plot inside the United States and New York City. So they just go to the Czech Republic and they like watch a person and
then share some intel. But like, it could have been any it could have been any of the major Five Eyes countries that was actually that actually had agents there looking at which.
Also gives them another version of plausible deniability. Right, it could have been one of the five So now we're playing the game of clue, right. So the it's it's strange too because Canada says that they caught they caught info from UH from a member of the Indian diplomacy outfit who was using a government phone to plan some of this, which is just egregious. And I don't know, man, I don't I don't buy that. Honestly, that's way too sloppy for a professional.
I think, oh, yeah, that's hard to imagine unless they don't usually do that kind of thing and were instructed to somehow or were urged to, I don't know, and they didn't know what they were doing. But that doesn't that doesn't feel it feels to me.
It feels like it feels like something you would see on HBO. I mean, maybe they just had really bad code phrases too. Maybe they were just like mister Gupta, I hear you paint houses, you know, like like that's
I don't know, it seems weird. I mean, there are other possibilities not proven, and what if there's a criminal syndicate or something on the wrong side of the law, like the mob here in the US in India, and they're working independently because they they happen to have aligning interest right they don't want the colistan to exist for reasons of their own, or maybe there's money involved. I mean, the US historically doesn't mind working with the mob or warlords.
The Japanese government has worked with the Yaquaza before, like it.
Well, if you leave the stories about the MLK assassination, the US government worked with like small organized small town organized crime in order to carry out that assassination.
And they did it with the approval of larger organized crime associates. And the thing is, the smaller you go, the less you have to pay as well.
It's just so wow, No.
It's it's crazy. I mean there's also okay, the last one, what if a third party threw some chaos into the dance, you know, because both Canada and the US are extremely focused on improving relations with India before this string of deaths. From a cost benefit perspective, if you wanted that not to happen, this would be a very cost effective, asymmetrical way of stopping it.
So just sewing some chaos, you know, for your own financial benefit.
Hey, Venezuela, you got to protect yourself from Guyana, et cetera. Walk down the street for that one. But so Prime Minister Mody recently, as of December twentieth, I think twentieth or twenty first responded publicly in his first real public statements about this. He said, look, these are a few incidents. We want to maintain diplomatic ties and improve diplomatic ties
between the US and India. And also, and he spoke with the Financial Times by the way, he said, look, if someone gives us any information, we'll definitely look into it. Because I don't know what's happening. Is the implication I plausibly deny any activity in this regard. That could be sincere. It could be I don't know, if you since we're playing the paranoia game, that could also be a challenge to say, tell us how you know this, tell us how you collect information?
Can we just.
Stop playing the paranoia game, everybody, I'm so over it.
Ah, it's weird, so over it. I mean maybe Mody is over it as well. He did reiterate the claim India has made again continually. He said, Look, this separate is violence is real. We're very concerned about terrorist and extremist groups and they're operating with a parent impunity from the safety of other countries. Help us, please, you know.
And that's isn't that similar to the United States questioning a Pakistan right in other countries that were quote harboring terrorists, right, and like you're either with us or you're against us. It's this same thing in my mind.
A false dichotomy perhaps, right like or a dichotomy. At least it reminds me of a Do you remember when Pervez Musherief showed up on The Daily Show? John Stewart interviewed him. Yeah, it was very weird situation.
I remember reading about the production to make it happen, but I don't remember the interview at all.
I don't remember well. With our powers combined because I don't remember, I'm sure there was a ton of weird stuff going into the production of that. But I remember the interview. I was like, either John Stewart is excellent at this job or Musha Reef is strangely charismatic. I don't like that. You're rolling with the jokes man, I know what you did. But anyway, that's the story for another night. Perhaps we see what appears to be a
genuine conspiracy here. We just don't know all the pieces, but like they say in that tool song, we know the piece is fit right. We also know that there's no escaping the fact people are dead. Events have been set in motion, and maybe one of the best ways to end this is to say something to the Sikh communities in the US and Canada diasper. Overall, this is
just regular people. They got all the joys and concerns and fears of any other civilian, and now as a result of these things, they're wondering if their own governments will protect them should assassins come to call. And that's a horrible thing to have to wonder.
I don't know, Yeah, no, really, it really is. Hey yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
Maybe maybe someone listening now knows the answer.
I hope, So I hope you do and you'll write to us, but just quickly, if you want to dig deep into this, there is something of the Australian Broadcasting Company put out on September nineteenth last year called Canada and India have expelled each other's top diplomats in the last twenty four hours. Here's why Australia is deeply concerned. To me, that is one of the strangest titles for an article that I can imagine right the headline for an article like Okay, Canada and India are doing this thing.
Here's why Australia is concerned. In my mind, I don't connect any of that stuff, but it takes us back to our discussion about five eyes, which is I think it's worth your time to dive into that. If you're listening to this right now, and there's so many articles out there that you do kind of have to go back in time and build like the story as you
go if you really want to dive deep. So I just you know, a good place to start is probably the assassination that occurred in June of twenty twenty three, right one, the one that was in Canada. Like, start there if you're going to look into this and then just kind of let it flow.
And go back to the early two thousands too. Yes, oh my god, Holistan activism anyway. Five is shys or watch it you You see your every move and they might know when you email us, we can't hear. We can't wait to hear what you Yeah, that's a setup.
We'll say that, actually they will.
Yeah, like for that's true, So tread lightly, use a spoofed email account, and definitely give yourself a fun nickname. You can also reach out to us online in other ways like social media where we are conspiracy stuff on Facebook, YouTube and x fka Twitter, Conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram, and tikeny talk.
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We are the folks who read every single email we get conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. Happy twenty twenty four, folks. We can't wait to hear from you.
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