Indore, Oct 16: The medical community on Tuesday "purified" the premises of the Government Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College by sprinkling Ganga water after a "Halloween party" was allegedly organised in the 150-year-old building on its campus.

Amid uproar, the college management claimed it didn't grant permission to hold the "Halloween" event in the historical building.

Office-bearers of the Medical Teachers' Association (MTA) and other doctors sprinkled Gangajal in the King Edward Medical School building, constructed in 1878 during the British Raj.

"We learned that a Halloween party was recently held in this building. We have purified the building area by sprinkling Gangajal," MTA president Rahul Rokde told PTI.

He demanded that the medical college management lodge an FIR against those responsible for defacing the historical building in the name of a 'Halloween party'.

"We had allowed representatives of a local organisation, called Jain Social Group, to inspect the premises of King Edward Medical School. We didn't permit a Halloween party," said college dean Dr Sanjay Dixit.

Dixit claimed no Halloween party was organised in the historical building, adding that the investigation would be conducted to know the facts.

However, the dilapidated "King Edward Medical School" building tells a different story.

Eyewitnesses said the walls of the building were marked with "O Stree, Kal Aana" (lines inspired by a horror comedy movie) and several scary sentences written in English. Obscene pictures and objectionable lines have also been engraved, they claimed.

"From the pictures that have surfaced on social media, we came to know that this building was painted as a haunted building for the Halloween party. We cannot tolerate such an act because this building is a heritage of the medical field and alma mater of many reputed doctors," said Government Super Speciality Hospital Superintendent Dr Sumit Shukla, an alumnus of the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College.

"We want the building's renovation to preserve the rich history of Indore's medical fraternity," he added.

Halloween is celebrated in many countries on October 31, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows' Day. In popular culture, the day has become a celebration of horror.

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Ottawa, Oct 16: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday acknowledged that he had only intelligence and no "hard evidentiary proof" when he alleged the involvement of Indian government agents in the killing of Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar last year.

Testifying before the public inquiry into foreign interference in federal electoral processes and democratic institutions, Trudeau claimed the Indian diplomats were collecting information on Canadians who are in disagreement with the Narendra Modi government and passing it to the highest levels within the Indian government and criminal organisations like the Lawrence Bishnoi gang.

"I was briefed on the fact that there was intelligence from Canada, and possibly from Five Eyes allies that made it fairly clear, incredibly clear, that India was involved in this... Agents of the government of India were involved in the killing of a Canadian on Canadian soil," he said.

He added that it was something that his government had to take extremely seriously.

'Five Eyes' network is an intelligence alliance consisting of the US, the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. It is both surveillance-based and signals intelligence (SIGINT).

"India had indeed done it, and we had reasons to believe that they had," Trudeau said, adding that his government's immediate approach was to engage with the government of India to work on this together to make sure that there was accountability.

Recalling the G20 summit hosted by India in September last year, he said it was a big moment for India, and Canada "had the opportunity of making it a very uncomfortable summit" for India if it went public with these allegations.

"We chose not to. We chose to continue to work behind the scenes to try and get India to cooperate with us," he said.

Trudeau said the Indian side asked for evidence "and our response was, well, it's within your security agencies."

But the Indian side insisted on the evidence. "And at that point, it was primarily intelligence, not hard evidentiary proof. So we said, well, let's work together and look into your security services and maybe we can get that done," he said.

He said he met Prime Minister Modi after the end of the G20 summit in Delhi and shared that "we knew that they were involved and expressed a real concern around it. He responded with the usual response from him, which is that we have people who are outspoken against the Indian government living in Canada that he would like to see arrested."

Trudeau said he tried to explain that there is freedom of speech in Canada to criticise governments overseas or indeed to criticise a Canadian government.

"But as always, we would work with them on any evidence or any concerns they have around terrorism or incitement to hate or anything that is patently unacceptable," he said.

"We launched investigations. The Indian response to these allegations and our investigations was to double down on attacks against this government, attacks against this government's integrity, attacks against Canada in general, but also to arbitrarily eject dozens of Canadian diplomats from India," he said.

"This was a situation in which we had clear and certainly now even clearer, indications that India had violated Canada's sovereignty," he said.

He alleged that the Indian diplomats were collecting information on Canadians who were in disagreement with the Modi government, passing along that information to the highest levels within the Indian government, and to criminal organizations like the Bishnoi gang.

"...It was the RCMP determination that that chain, or that sequence, that scheme, needed to be disrupted and going public on Monday as they did," he said.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) on Monday said it has evidence that six Indian diplomats were involved in the alleged plot to murder Nijjar in June 2023.

The RCMP also alleged that the Bishnoi gang is connected to the agents of the Indian government, which is targeting the South Asian community specifically "pro-Khalistani elements" in the country.

On this, India strongly rejected attempts by Canadian authorities to link Indian agents with criminal gangs in Canada with official sources in New Delhi even saying that Ottawa's assertion that it shared evidence with New Delhi in the Nijjar case was simply not true.

The sources in New Delhi also rejected Trudeau's previous allegations that India was engaging in activities including carrying out covert operations targeting Canadian nationals in his country.

India expelled six Canadian diplomats and announced withdrawing its high commissioner from Canada after dismissing Ottawa's allegations linking the envoy to a probe into the killing of Nijjar.

Nijjar was gunned down in Surrey, British Columbia, in June last year.