Canada and India expel diplomats over killing of Sikh activist

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.

Trudeau on Monday described India’s actions as a “deeply unacceptable violation of Canada’s sovereignty and international law”. 

Trudeau on Monday described India’s actions as a “deeply unacceptable violation of Canada’s sovereignty and international law”. 

Trudeau said the activities included clandestine information gathering, coercive behaviour targeting south Asian Canadians and involvement in more than a dozen threatening and violent acts, including murder.

“ (The evidence) cannot be ignored. It leads to one conclusion, it is necessary to disrupt the criminal activities that continue to pose a threat to public safety in Canada,” he said.

Trudeau added that he had raised the matter with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and had “impressed upon him that it needs to be taken very very seriously”.

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 said 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.

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.

“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.

She added: “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.”

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”.