Randeep Sarai, a Liberal MP who took responsibility for inviting a man convicted of the attempted murder of an Indian cabinet minister to an event with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has stepped down from his role as chair of the party’s Pacific Caucus.
Sarai tweeted, ” Iwant to again apologize for my role in recent unfortunate events. Moving forward, I will be exercising better judgment. As I don’t want to distract from the good work of the Pacific Caucus, I will be stepping down as caucus chair.”
Voted into the job in October 2016, Sarai is stepping down after Jaspal Atwal, allegedly a former member of terrorist organization the International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF), was invited to an event hosted by the Canadian High Commissioner in India.
A Canadian official said in a background briefing with media that Atwal’s invitation was orchestrated by people within the Indian government. Conservative leader Andrew Scheer called those remarks a “conspiracy theory.”
For his part, Trudeau backed the official who held this briefing in Question Period on Tuesday.
He said, “Our professional non-partisan service does high quality work, and when one of our top diplomats and security officials says something to Canadians, it’s because they know it to be true.”
