Canada and India engage in diplomatic expulsions over killing of Sikh activist

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Canada and India engaged in tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions after Canadian police alleged the Indian high commissioner and other staff had been involved in “clandestine activities” over the murder of a Sikh activist.

A Canadian government official said high commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma and five other diplomats had been informed that they were “persona non-grata”, effective on Monday morning.

India later announced it had expelled six Canadian diplomats including Stewart Wheeler, Canada’s deputy high commissioner, and Ottawa’s most senior remaining envoy. New Delhi said it had asked them to leave by Saturday. 

Canadian officials are probing what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has claimed were “credible allegations” of Indian government involvement in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist who was shot dead in a suburb of Vancouver in June 2023.

On Monday, New Delhi said in a statement it had received a “diplomatic communication” from Ottawa suggesting that Verma and other diplomats were “persons of interest” in an investigation, escalating an already acute diplomatic rift between the two countries.

Commissioner Mike Duheme of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told journalists in Ottawa on Monday there had been “well over a dozen credible and imminent threats to life, which have led to the law enforcement warning members of the South Asian community and specifically members of the pro Khalistan movement”.

“[There are] links tying agents of the government of India to homicides and violent acts,” Duheme said.

“Indian diplomats and consular officials based in Canada leverage their official position to engage in clandestine activities such as collecting information for the government of India, either directly or through their agents and other individuals who acted voluntarily or through coercion,” he added.

The RCMP has “numerous investigations” and has charged “a significant number” of individuals for their direct involvement in homicides, extortion and other criminal acts of violence, according to Duheme.

“There has been some conversations in the past about lifting the immunity for these individuals so that we can interview them, and we were not successful in doing so,” he said. 

India’s ministry of external affairs said it had summoned Canada’s chargé d’affaires in New Delhi over the “baseless targeting” of Verma and other diplomats, which it described as “completely unacceptable”.

“It was underlined that in an atmosphere of extremism and violence, the Trudeau government’s actions endangered their safety,” India’s foreign ministry said.

“We have no faith in the current Canadian government’s commitment to ensure their security. Therefore, the government of India has decided to withdraw the high commissioner and other targeted diplomats and officials.”

New Delhi said it also reserved the right to take “further steps” in response to what it called “the Trudeau government’s support for extremism, violence and separatism against India”.

Trudeau created an uproar in India last year when he said Canada was investigating “credible allegations” that Indian agents might have been behind the assassination of Nijjar, a supporter of the creation of an independent “Khalistan” in the Punjab region, which is split between India and Pakistan.

The accusations, combined with a US criminal case brought against suspects in an alleged murder plot against Gurpatwant Pannun Singh, a US-Canadian Sikh separatist, shone light on claims of alleged official targeting of diaspora activists who India considers terrorists.

India has rejected allegations of government involvement in Nijjar’s killing and the attempt on Pannun’s life. 

Canadian authorities in May arrested and charged three Indian nationals with Nijjar’s shooting.

The RCMP said at the time that it was investigating whether there were any ties to the government of India, adding that others might have been involved in the killing. 

“The government of Canada has done what India has long been asking for, and Canada has provided credible, irrefutable evidence of ties between agents of the government of India and a murder of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil,” Wheeler told reporters in New Delhi on Monday evening.

“Now it’s time for India to do what it said it would do and look into those allegations.”

Earlier, India rejected what it said were “preposterous” and “ludicrous” allegations against its diplomats, and attacked Trudeau personally.

“His cabinet has included individuals who have openly associated with an extremist and separatist agenda regarding India,” the ministry of external affairs said. Verma could not immediately be reached for comment.

The diplomatic dispute over Nijjar’s killing has brought relations between India and Canada to a low point, with New Delhi expelling most Canadian diplomats and temporarily suspending visa services last year. 

Indian officials have accused the Trudeau government of pandering to Sikh voters with views New Delhi considers extreme, in what it has called “vote bank politics”.