The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Friday said that New Delhi has "taken seriously" the latest threat issued by the US-based Khalistani separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun against India's Ambassador to the US, Vinay Mohan Kwatra and raised it accordingly with the authorities in Washington.
According to the threat that Pannun issued through a recent video, Kwatra was on the radar of the pro-Khalistani Sikhs in America for coordinating with Russian authorities who had been providing inputs to the Indian intelligence agencies regarding the Khalistani network in the United States.
"As and when such threats are issued, we take them very seriously and raise them with the US government. In this particular case also, we have raised it with the US government and it is our expectation that the United States government will take our security concerns seriously and act on it," MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said during a weekly media briefing in New Delhi on Friday.
A former Foreign Secretary, Kwatra assumed the charge as India's Ambassador to the United States in August this year, succeeding Taranjit Singh Sandhu.
His appointment came at a time when Khalistani separatists continue to target the Hindu community in the country and also the Indian missions.
The Khalistanis have been involved in incidents of temple defacement both in California and New York besides committing acts of arson and vandalism at the Indian embassy in San Francisco.
Several lawmakers, including Shri Thanedar - a Democrat elected to the House of Representatives from Michigan state - have raised alarm over the "substantial increase" in attacks on Hindus and their places of worship in the United States.
The lawmaker had recently expressed frustration with the investigating agency for their failure to find the culprits behind the incidents at the temples and the consulate.
"It seems like a very concerted effort to target these places of worship that's brought a lot of fear to the community. And too often, what we have seen is that law enforcement, local law enforcement enter into those investigations and hardly ever is a suspect identified, and that investigation goes nowhere.".
What that does is leave the community feeling like nobody cares about them. Nobody reports back to them on what's going on. And that means that the community continues to live in fear, the computing community continues to live in an adverse situation with essentially no help from law enforcement," he said.
The lawmaker went on to state that he and his colleagues are asking the US Department of Justice for "coordinated efforts between the local law enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation Department of Justice, and higher priority needs to be assigned to such hate crimes against this peaceful community".
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