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India is withdrawing its high commissioner and five other diplomats from Canada, citing fears for their safety, hours after claiming they had been targeted in the murder case of an exiled Sikh separatist.
Canadian officials are probing what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last year 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 that it had received a “diplomatic communication” from Ottawa suggesting that high commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma and other diplomats were “persons of interest” in an investigation, escalating an already acute diplomatic rift between the two countries.
It later specified that five diplomats would be withdrawn in addition to Verma.
On Monday evening, India’s ministry of external affairs said it had summoned Canada’s chargé d’affaires 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 allegations of alleged official targeting of diaspora activists 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 Royal Canadian Mounted Police 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,” Stewart Wheeler, Canada’s deputy high commissioner, 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,” he added.
Earlier on Monday, 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 India 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 called on Monday “vote bank politics”.
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