WASHINGTON - Minorities in India face deteriorating treatment, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom said on Tuesday and it recommended targeted sanctions against India's external spy agency over alleged involvement in assassination plots against Sikh separatists.

Since 2023, India's alleged targeting of Sikh separatists in the US and Canada has emerged as a wrinkle in US-India ties, with Washington charging an ex-Indian intelligence officer, Vikash Yadav, in a foiled US plot. India labels Sikh separatists as security threats and has denied involvement.

"In 2024, religious freedom conditions in India continued to deteriorate as attacks and discrimination against religious minorities continued to rise," the US commission said in a report released on Tuesday.

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It said Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) "propagated hateful rhetoric and disinformation against Muslims and other religious minorities" during last year's election campaign.

US State Department reports on human rights and religious freedom have noted minority abuses in recent years. New Delhi calls them "deeply biased."

Modi, who has been prime minister since 2014, denies discrimination and says his government's policies like electrification drives and subsidy schemes help all communities.

The panel recommended the US government "designate India as a 'country of particular concern'" for religious freedom violations and "impose targeted sanctions" against Yadav and RAW. The Indian embassy had no immediate comment.

Rights advocates, in noting the plight of Indian minorities, point to rising hate speech, a citizenship law the UN called "fundamentally discriminatory," anti-conversion legislation that critics say challenges freedom of belief.

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The commission is a bipartisan US government advisory body that monitors religious freedom abroad and makes policy recommendations.