'They could have been hired hitmen, who knows?'

'It's been several months now and they still haven't arrested anybody.'
'It's very possible that whoever was involved in the killing of Mr Nijjar are already gone.'

"This is just the nature of police investigations. Usually, you have to get people (involved in crimes) very quickly, and if they don't get them very quickly, then it usually mean that it may be probably much more difficult to find out who these culprits were," Robert Fife, the Ottawa bureau chief of Canada's The Globe and Mail newspaper, tells Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com.

• Part 1 of the Interview: 'Trudeau painted Modi in a corner'

Is it true that the The Globe and Mail gave the Canadian prime minister's office an ultimatum that it was going to publish a report on the Nijjar killing, which pushed Justin Trudeau to make his statement in the Canadian parliament.

I found out about it (Canadian intelligence hinting at India's involvement in Hardeep Singh Nijjar's murder), and I went to the prime minister's office to say, I'm going to write this. What do you have to say about it? They asked us to wait a week.

I said, no, I can't wait a week. I'll give you 24 hours. And I said we would publish it on Tuesday morning. And the prime minister came out at 3.15 (pm) on Monday and announced it in the House of Commons.

But this was not an ultimatum. As I explained to you, he didn't have to do what he did. He could have come out and said, well, for national security reasons and because of an ongoing police investigation I'm not going to comment on The Globe and Mail story. I've talked to India and I've talked to our allies, and I'm not going to say anything more.

Would you believe that Indian agencies had a role in Hardeep Singh Nijjar's killing?

I don't know. When Mr Nijjar died and some of the Sikh nationalists (in Canada) were blaming India, I didn't believe it because I didn't think India would be stupid enough to do something like this.

But now there is, according to the Canadian government and according to the United States, credible intelligence that Indian agents may have been responsible for this (Nijjar's murder); the United States is not coming out saying this (that Indian agencies are involved in Nijjar's murder); they don't want to say this, but they've seen the intelligence and they probably shared some of it with the Canadian government.

The Americans want to have a good relationship with India. They see it as a counterweight to China. And also American businesses are all trying to get out of China and go to India and Vietnam as well, but India largely.

India is also the biggest market in the world now, after China.

But the United States doesn't want to do this, but they've seen something that makes them think that there are some agents, somebody in the Indian government was aware or was involved in this (Nijjar's murder).

If the United States has credible evidence, then where is the question of 'may have been involved'?

Well, I don't know, because I haven't seen the evidence, but they (the Canadian and US governments) are taking this (the evidence that US has shared with Canada) seriously.

They say the allegations are serious and they're asking the Indian government to cooperate. I accept their word that whatever they have is serious enough for them to urge the Indian government to cooperate.

How do you look at the US' role in facilitating the investigation into the Nijjar killing?

The last thing in the world the United States wants is to get into a fight with India when they already have problems with China. They see India, which is not only an important military power, but a growing economic power in the Indo-Pacific, and so they want to cooperate and work with India.

Having said that, India is a democracy; we don't want a fellow democracy sending agents into other democratic countries and killing people. That is the concern that the United States has. That's why they've said the allegations are serious.

But they're not going to go and impose sanctions or cut off relations with India because it's too important a power.

How do you see the investigation into the murder in Surrey, British Columbia?

We don't know what the police are doing because police investigations, by their nature, are difficult to get at. It's been several months now and they still haven't arrested anybody. It's very possible that whoever was involved in the killing of Mr Nijjar are already gone.

This is not unusual when people come in and do State-sanctioned hits; they get out of the country right away, within 24 hours. So whoever may have been responsible, may already have been gone, and they may not be in India.

They could have been hired hitmen, who knows? I don't know that. We don't know that. So if they were involved, they're probably not in Canada, and the police are probably trying to follow around people who may have been accomplices, but that may not be an easy thing to prove.

So the longer the case drags on, the longer the possibility that they won't be able to find out who they (Nijjar's killers) are.

This is just the nature of police investigations. Usually, you have to get people (involved in crimes) very quickly, and if they don't get them very quickly, then it usually mean that it may be probably much more difficult to find out who these culprits were.

Obviously they think the Canadian government knows something that can help them identify who may have been (Nijjar's killers).