16 October 2024 , 18:21
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Canada and India traded barbs this week, with both countries expelling diplomats following allegations that New Delhi conspired with extremists to carry out acts of violence against the Canadian Sikh community.
The diplomatic row stems from the assassination of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June 2023. Nijjar, who became a Canadian and ceased to be Indian in 2007, was seen as a human rights activist in Canada, but a dissident and a terrorist by his former country.
Following his death, federal authorities alleged that the Indian government was connected to the masked gunmen accused of murdering a Canadian citizen on home soil.
Ottawa designated on Monday six Indian diplomats persona non grata, including high commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma, over what it called a targeted campaign against Canadian citizens by agents linked to the Indian government.
India responded in kind, informing six high-ranking Canadian diplomats that they have until midnight Oct. 19 to leave the country.
Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly said that the six Indian diplomats were identified as “persons of interest in the Nijjar case” and that the decision to expel them was made only after investigators had gathered “ample, clear and concrete evidence.”
Ottawa asked New Delhi to waive the six’s diplomatic immunities and allow the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to interview them. The request was denied, which resulted in Ottawa serving their expulsion orders.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs denounced the decision as a “baseless targeting” of its top diplomats and that it had “no faith in the current Canadian Government’s commitment to ensure their security.”
RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme, however, accused the Indian government of placing agents inside Canada to carry out acts of violent extremism against the Sikh community. He went on to say that Indian diplomats are “running a major intelligence-gathering network” — fueled by payment and coercion — to target Sikhs across Canada’s major cities.
“We will never tolerate the involvement of a foreign government in threatening and killing Canadian citizens on Canadian soil,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in an official statement.
He repeated accusations that India has orchestrated “clandestine information gathering techniques” and has involved itself in “coercive behavior”, including murder, against South Asian Canadians.
“This is unacceptable,” Mr. Trudeau said.
New Delhi categorically denied Ottawa’s narrative and said that it withdrew its diplomats from Canada because of “an atmosphere of extremism and violence” that placed them in danger.
India further said that Canada had “not shared a shred of evidence…despite many requests” and that the entire investigation is nothing more than “a deliberate strategy of smearing India for political gains.”
Canada is home to the world’s largest Sikh community outside of India. The Indian government looks upon them with suspicion and claims that they are proponents of the separatist Khalistan movement, which seeks to carve a homeland for Sikhs out of India’s Punjab region.