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Canada and India have 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 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.
Mélanie Joly, Canada’s minister of foreign affairs, confirmed in a statement that Monday’s expulsions were due “to a targeted campaign against Canadian citizens by agents linked to the Government of India”.
“The decision to expel these individuals was made with great consideration and only after the [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] gathered ample, clear and concrete evidence which identified six individuals as persons of interest in the Nijjar case,” she said.
She added that India had refused to waive the diplomatic immunity of the diplomats or to co-operate in the police investigation, and said that Canada acted out of fear for public safety.
“We continue to ask that the Indian government support the ongoing investigation in the Nijjar case, as it remains in both our countries’ interest to get to the bottom of this,” she said.
India’s ministry of external affairs earlier 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.
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”.
RCMP commissioner Mike Duheme told journalists in Ottawa on Monday there had been “well over a dozen credible and imminent threats to life, which had led law enforcement agencies to warn 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 had investigated and charged “a significant number” of individuals for their involvement in homicides, extortion and other criminal acts of violence, according to Duheme.
Trudeau caused 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 a 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.
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”.
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