On Sunday (16th June), the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) News carried out yet another hitjob on India where it accused the Modi government of planning to assassinate Khalistanis residing in Australia. One of the propagandists at the helm of this targeted disinformation campaign happened to be Avani Dias, who had previously lied about her visa being cancelled by the Indian government.
Now, reacting to that report on ABC, former Australian High Commissioner to India, Barry O’Farrell has expressed his disappointment and underlined how this is an attempt to undermine India-Australia relationship.
Speaking to IndianLink, O’Farrell said, “The ABC’s charter is that it should be fair and objective, and for its journalists to uphold those standards. The concern I have is potential damage to the Australia-India relationship through such a program.”
He further said, “The report was disappointing, because it seemed essentially like it was a conga line of criticisms without an attempt to enable viewers to decide on the issues presented, be it communalism, Khalistan, or the Canadian and American allegations.”
The former High Commissioner further said, “Australia clearly has a different view to Canada, which prefers to use megaphones to communicate with India, and we all know that that doesn’t work. Australia continues to bring its values to its engagements with India.”
O’Farrell further said, “Almost a year on from the allegations first made by Prime Minister Trudeau (regarding Khalistani terrorist Nijjar’s death), we’ve seen no court action in Canada, [and] to the best of my knowledge, we’ve seen no court action in the United States.”
The former High Commissioner added that to suggest that the reasons Indians are getting involved in Australian politics are for self-advancement or to influence the Australian government’s relation with India is a complete slur against citizens who are entrepreneurial and peaceful.
Barry O’Farrell’s remarks come in response to the article in Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) titled – Narendra Modi’s Indian government and its allies accused of spying, silencing Sikh critics and pushing its far-right ideology in Australia.
A 45-minute-long documentary was also released on Monday (17th June) on the same subject.
In their report, ABC News claimed that the death threats from Indian authorities have forced Khalistanis in Australia to stop their ‘political work’ – a term meant to downplay the extremist motives to secede the Indian State of Punjab from the Union of India.
