Canada and India expel each other’s diplomats in escalating dispute over an assassination

CITYnews halifax / By Aijaz Hussain, Sheik Saaliq And Robert Gillies, The Associated Press

Canada and India each expelled six diplomats Monday in tit-for-tat moves as part of an escalating dispute over the June 2023 assassination of a Sikh activist in Canada.

A senior Canadian government official said that Canada was expelling six Indian diplomats, including the high commissioner, after police uncovered evidence of ongoing violent criminal activity linked to the Indian government.

Shortly afterward, the Indian foreign ministry said it was expelling six Canadian diplomats, including the acting high commissioner and the deputy high commissioner. It said in a statement that the diplomats were told to leave India by the end of Saturday.

The ministry had said earlier Monday that India was withdrawing its diplomats, after rejecting Canada’s diplomatic communication on Sunday that said the Indian ambassador was a “person of interest” in the assassination.

A second senior Canadian official said that Canada expelled the Indian diplomats first before they withdrew. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last year that there were credible allegations that the Indian government had links to the June 2023 assassination in Canada of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

India has rejected the accusation as absurd.

Nijjar, 45, was fatally shot in his pickup truck in June 2023 after he left the Sikh temple he led in the city of Surrey, British Columbia. An Indian-born citizen of Canada, he owned a plumbing business and was a leader in what remains of a once-strong movement to create an independent Sikh homeland.

India designated him a terrorist in 2020, and at the time of his death had been seeking his arrest for alleged involvement in an attack on a Hindu priest.

In response to the allegations, India told Canada last year to remove 41 of its 62 diplomats in the country. Ever since, the relations between the two countries have been frosty.

The pro-Khalistan, or Sikh independence, movement is a thorny issue between India and Canada. New Delhi has repeatedly criticized Trudeau’s government for being soft on supporters of the Khalistan movement who reside in Canada. The Khalistan movement is banned in India, but has support among the Sikh diaspora, particularly in Canada.

India has been asking countries like Canada, Australia and the U.K. to take legal action against Sikh activists. India has particularly raised these concerns with Canada, where Sikhs make up nearly 2% of the country’s population.

The Indian foreign ministry said Monday that “India reserves the right to take further steps in response to the Trudeau government’s support for extremism, violence and separatism against India.”

The ministry also summoned the top Canadian diplomat in New Delhi and told him that “the baseless targeting” of the Indian high commissioner, or ambassador, and other diplomats and officials in Canada “was completely unacceptable.”

“We have no faith in the current Canadian government’s commitment to ensure their security,” it said.

Stewart Wheeler, the Canadian diplomat who was directed to leave India, told reporters after being summoned that his government has shared “incredible and irrefutable evidence of ties between agents of the government of India and the murder of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil.”

Wheeler said India must investigate the allegations and that Canada “stands ready to cooperate with India.”

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Robert Gillies reported from Toronto and Aijaz Hussain from Srinagar, India.

Aijaz Hussain, Sheikh Saaliq And Robert Gillies, The Associated Press