KRUTIKA PATHI and ROB GILLIES AP
India dismissed allegations that its authorities was linked to the killing of a Sikh activist in Canada as “absurd” Tuesday, expelling a senior Canadian diplomat and accusing Canada of interfering in India’s inside affairs.
It got here a day after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described what he referred to as credible allegations that India was related to the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, an advocate of Sikh independence from India who was gunned down on June 18 outdoors a Sikh cultural middle in Surrey, British Columbia, and Canada expelled a prime Indian diplomat.
“Any involvement of a overseas authorities within the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty,” Trudeau advised Parliament Monday. “Within the strongest potential phrases I proceed to induce the federal government of India to cooperate with Canada to unravel this matter.”
The dueling expulsions come as relations between Canada and India are tense. Commerce talks have been derailed and Canada simply canceled a commerce mission to India that was deliberate for the autumn.
In its assertion asserting the expulsion, India’s Ministry of Exterior Affairs wrote that “the choice displays Authorities of India’s rising concern on the interference of Canadian diplomats in our inside issues and their involvement in anti-India actions.”
Nijjar was organizing an unofficial referendum in India for an unbiased Sikh nation on the time of this demise. Indian authorities introduced a money reward final yr for data resulting in Nijjar’s arrest, accusing him of involvement in an alleged assault on a Hindu priest in India.
India has repeatedly {accused} Canada of supporting the Sikh independence, or Khalistan, motion, which is banned in India however has help in nations like Canada and the U.Ok. with sizable Sikh diaspora populations. Canada has a Sikh inhabitants of greater than 770,000, about 2% of its complete inhabitants.
In March, the Modi authorities summoned the Canadian Excessive Commissioner in New Delhi to complain about Sikh independence protests in Canada. In 2020, India’s overseas ministry additionally summoned the highest diplomat over feedback made by Trudeau about an agricultural protest motion related to the state of Punjab, the place many Sikhs reside.
Trudeau advised Parliament that he introduced up Nijjar’s slaying with Indian Prime Minister on the G20 assembly in New Delhi final week. He stated he advised Modi that any Indian authorities involvement can be unacceptable and that he requested for cooperation within the investigation.
India’s overseas ministry dismissed the allegation as “absurd and motivated.”
“Such unsubstantiated allegations search to shift the main target from Khalistani terrorists and extremists, who’ve been offered shelter in Canada and proceed to threaten India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” it wrote in an announcement issued earlier Tuesday.
On the G20 assembly, Modi expressed “sturdy considerations” over Canada’s dealing with of the Punjabi independence motion among the many abroad Sikhs throughout a gathering with Trudeau on the G20, the assertion added.
The assertion referred to as on Canada to work with India on what New Delhi stated is a menace to the Canadian Indian diaspora, and described the Sikh motion as “selling secessionism and inciting violence” in opposition to Indian diplomats. Earlier this yr, supporters of the Khalistan motion vandalized Indian consulates in London and San Francisco.
Canadian International Minister Mélanie Joly stated Canada had expelled a prime Indian diplomat, whom she recognized as the top of Indian intelligence in Canada.
“If confirmed true this could be an awesome violation of our sovereignty and of probably the most fundamental rule of how nations take care of one another,” Joly stated. “As a consequence we’ve got expelled a prime Indian diplomat.”
Public Security Minister Dominic LeBlanc stated Canada’s nationwide safety adviser and the top of Canada’s spy service have travelled to India to satisfy their counterparts and to confront the Indian intelligence businesses with the allegations.
He referred to as it an lively murder investigation led by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Joly stated Trudeau additionally raised the matter with U.S. President Joe Biden and U.Ok. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
“We’re deeply involved in regards to the allegations referenced by Prime Minister Trudeau,” White Home Nationwide Safety Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson. “We stay in common contact with our Canadian companions. It’s crucial that Canada’s investigation proceed and the perpetrators be delivered to justice.”
Joly additionally stated she would increase the difficulty along with her friends within the G7 on Monday night in New York Metropolis forward of the United Nations Common Meeting.
Canadian opposition New Democrat chief Jagmeet Singh, who’s himself Sikh, referred to as it outrageous and surprising. Singh stated he grew up listening to tales that difficult India’s file on human rights would possibly forestall you from getting a visa to journey there.
“However to listen to the prime minister of Canada corroborate a possible hyperlink between a homicide of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil by a overseas authorities is one thing I might by no means have imagined,” Singh stated.
The World Sikh Group of Canada referred to as Nijjar an outspoken supporter of Khalistan who “usually led peaceable protests in opposition to the violation of human rights actively happening in India and in help of Khalistan.”
“Nijjar had publicly spoken of the menace to his life for months and stated that he was focused by Indian intelligence businesses,” the assertion stated.
Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a lawyer and spokesperson for the Sikhs For Justice group, has stated Nijjar had been warned by Canadian intelligence officers about being focused for assassination by “mercenaries” earlier than he was gunned down.
India’s essential opposition celebration issued an announcement backing Modi’s place. The Congress Get together wrote that “the nation’s pursuits and considerations should be saved paramount always” and that the struggle in opposition to terrorism needs to be uncompromising, particularly when it threatens the nation’s sovereignty.
Indian authorities have focused Sikh separatism because the Eighties, when an armed insurgency for an unbiased Sikh state took off in Punjab state.
In 1984, Indian forces stormed the Golden Temple within the state’s Amritsar metropolis to flush out Sikh separatists, who had taken refuge there. The controversial operation killed round 400, based on official figures, though Sikh teams estimate the toll to be increased.
The prime minister who ordered the raid, Indira Gandhi, was killed afterwards by two of her bodyguards, who have been Sikh. Her demise triggered a sequence of anti-Sikh riots, wherein Hindu mobs went from home to accommodate throughout northern India, pulling Sikhs from their houses, hacking many to demise and burning others alive.
