Canadian Media Sees Indian Nukes as ‘Ground Zero’ for Jihadists

With Canada and India resolving to deepen bilateral ties, the Canadian media has said that a nuke deal could be risky due to terrorist threats to India’s sites, citing a recent alert at India’s nuclear facilities as a warning to the Canadian government that is keen to clinch the deal.

The Canadian journalists, in their reports – who even went to the extent of spelling the name of one of the most known faces of the 20th century as Gandhi (for Mahatma Gandhi) – also dredged up the past that India is not trustworthy because it appropriated nuclear technology to make nuclear bombs.

These journalists, before starting this assignment, were most probably briefed by biased Canadian bureaucrats for whom “terrorist violence, such as bombings in public areas and on public transportation, occurs throughout India….attacks can take place anywhere and at any time in India…”

Putting opposition to civil nuclear deal between the two countries, John Ibbitson of the Globe and Mail, visiting India for the first time perhaps, says: “But India’s nuclear facilities have been placed on high alert, as evidence emerges that two men, one of them Canadian, might have scouted sites for the terrorist attack on Mumbai last year…”

Forwarding his argument, he writes: “Does Canada really want to help sell nuclear technology to a country that is the midst of such a volatile region, a country that in the 1970s appropriated our first foray into building Indian nuclear reactors to help fashion nuclear weapons, a country whose nuclear reactors would be an ideal ground zero for jihadists?”

While Rick Westhead, writing in the left-wing Toronto Star, says: “For Harper, the visit may have to do less with new trade deals or warmed relations than with building ties to Indo-Canadian voters before the next election.

“So rather than strategizing on new bilateral investment with India’s Ambani brothers, the prime minister will travel to the Golden Temple in Amritsar – the holiest shrine in the Sikh faith – and meet with Hindi film star Akshay Kumar, a torchbearer for the Vancouver Olympics.”

Not surprisingly, the current Canadian prime minister has always had prickly relations with his nation’s media.