New Delhi, India – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not known to give interviews to the media.

In late December, he made an exception and spoke to London’s Financial Times, which had first reported how the U.S. government had foiled an alleged plot by an Indian agent Kill a Sikh separatist on American soil. New York-based Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a dual American-Canadian citizen, was branded a “terrorist” by India for threatening violence against New Delhi and demanding a separate Sikh homeland from India called Khalistan.

In the interview, Modi addressed suggestions that US allegations of India’s involvement in an attempted extraterritorial and extrajudicial assassination had affected bilateral relations between the world’s two largest democracies. “I do not think it is appropriate to link some incidents to diplomatic relations between the two countries,” he said, committing, as his country’s foreign ministry had previously done, to an internal Indian investigation into the allegations.

But a series of visits – and a key decision to avoid a visit – suggest strains in relations at a time when both nations are heading toward elections, shrinking their leaders’ political space to make moves that draw criticism at home could.

On December 11, FBI Director Christopher Wray visited New Delhi for talks that were believed to include discussion of the Pannun case – the first visit by an FBI director to India in 12 years. The religious freedom watchdog set up by the US Congress also released its annual report early and called on the Biden administration to declare India a “country of particular concern”. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom linked the allegations of a stroke ordered against Pannun to broader concerns about it Attacks on religious minorities in India. It said it was “concerned” about India’s increased cross-border “attacks on religious minorities and those who advocate for them.”

Then US President Joe Biden declined Modi’s invitation to attend India’s Republic Day celebrations on January 26 as the chief guest. However, no formal reason was released Biden’s refusal The trip to New Delhi also forced India to postpone a meeting of the Quad grouping – which also includes Australia and Japan – that it had planned to hold during the US leader’s visit.

This is among a number of “signs” of tensions in the relationship, said Sushant Singh, senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi.

“June was the peak of India-US relations and since then they have cooled down,” he told Al Jazeera, referring to Modi’s visit to Washington this month, a rare politician making his second visit spoke to the US Congress. “The Pannun assassination clearly played a role in this.”

That doesn’t mean India-US relations are in serious trouble, said Christopher Clary, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Albany and a non-resident fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington. Apart from the Pannun episode, he told Al Jazeera, relations between the two countries were fine.

“It’s like a commercial airliner hitting turbulence,” he said. “It may be uncomfortable for the passengers, but it does not pose a danger to the aircraft. “We will continue to fly, even if we encounter bumpy air at times.”

Clary said that “the US and India’s shared concerns about a rising China may mask many potential differences between the US and India.”

Still, the view has prevailed in India – from influential voices in the strategic community to people on the streets – that New Delhi did nothing wrong if it did indeed attempt to assassinate Pannun. “If the U.S. can kill Osama bin Laden on foreign soil, what is stopping us,” asked an analyst who requested anonymity because he feared his candid comments could hurt his ability to work on bilateral ties . “Why different standards?

But India has also reacted differently to US allegations and similarly dramatic claims from Canada that New Delhi may be behind the murder of another Sikh separatist. Hardeep Singh Nijjarin the city of Surrey near Vancouver.

After Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made allegations against India in his parliament in October, New Delhi reacted harshly. She accused Canada of sheltering and supporting individuals and organizations it labels “terrorists” and halted trade talks.

New Delhi asked the Canadian High Commission to reduce its staff and temporarily froze visas for those wanting to visit India.

India reacted much more cautiously to the US allegations – there were no public protests and New Delhi instead promised its own investigation into the allegations. The Modi government has explained this difference in its response to the nature of Washington’s actions.

While India says Canada has yet to provide concrete evidence linking New Delhi to the Nijjar attack, the US has revealed much more of what its investigation has revealed. The indictment against an Indian businessman, Nikhil Gupta, now in Prague prison at Washington’s request, says he was in contact with an Indian intelligence official identified in legal filings as “C1.”

C1, the indictment says, paid Gupta $15,000 and promised a total of $100,000 for Pannun’s murder. But the hitman Gupta wanted to hire turned out to be a US government informant who uncovered the conspiracy.

While the Indian government tried to suggest that it was unaware of the alleged plot to kill Pannun, AS Dulat, the former head of India’s external intelligence agency – the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), said that such a plot would have been the case National Security Advisor Ajit Doval.

Whatever the truth, other reports suggest that India has withdrawn many RAW agents from North America in recent months. Meanwhile, progress on defense deals on India’s purchase of Predator drones and jet engine technology transfer between the two countries appears to have slowed, Singh said.

There is unrest within the corridors of power in New Delhi over what the Pannun case suggests: that Indian officials’ communications devices could be under scrutiny.

“If the US officials were monitoring the Indian government’s secure communications in Delhi, they definitely know a lot more than they have revealed so far,” Singh said.

“How and when this information will be used by them remains to be seen.”