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Canada’s foreign minister said on Friday India’s remaining diplomats were “clearly on notice” not to endanger Canadian lives after New Delhi’s top envoy in the country was named a person of interest in the assassination of a Sikh activist.
India's high commissioner was expelled on Monday along with five other diplomats, prompting foreign minister Mélanie Joly to compare India to Russia, saying Canada’s national police force has linked Indian diplomats to homicides, death threats and intimidation in the country.
Ms Joly said on Friday that Canada won't tolerate foreign diplomats putting the lives of Canadians at risk.
“We’ve never seen that in our history. That level of transnational repression cannot happen on Canadian soil. We’ve seen it elsewhere in Europe. Russia has done that in Germany and the UK and we needed to stand firm on this issue,” she said in Montreal.
Asked if other Indian diplomats will be expelled, Ms Joly said: “They are clearly on notice. Six of them have been expelled including the high commissioner in Ottawa. Others were mainly from Toronto and Vancouver and clearly we won’t tolerate any diplomats that are in contravention of the Vienna convention.”
Prime minister Justin Trudeau and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police went public this week with allegations that Indian diplomats were targeting Sikh separatists in Canada by sharing information about them with their government back home. They said top Indian officials were then passing that information along to Indian organized crime groups who were targeting the activists, who are Canadian citizens, with drive-by shootings, extortions and even murder.
India, for its part, has rejected the Canadian accusations as absurd, and its foreign ministry said it was expelling Canada’s acting high commissioner and five other diplomats in response.
Canada is not the only country that has accused Indian officials of plotting an assassination on foreign soil. The US Justice Department announced criminal charges against an Indian government employee Thursday in connection with an alleged foiled plot to kill a Sikh separatist leader living in New York City.
In the case announced by the Justice Department, Vikash Yadav, who authorities say directed the New York plot from India, faces murder-for-hire charges in a planned killing that prosecutors have previously said was meant to precede a string of other politically motivated murders in the United States and Canada.
US authorities have said the killing of the American Sikh man was to have taken place just days after Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian Sikh activist who was shot and killed outside a cultural center in Surrey, British Columbia, on 18 June 2023. Prosecutors say the goal was to kill at least four people in Canada and the US by 29 June 2023, and then more after that.
The Nijjar killing in Canada has soured India-Canada ties for more than a year, and despite Canada’s assertion that it has forwarded evidence of its allegations to Indian authorities, the Indian government continues to deny it has seen any.
India has repeatedly criticized the Canadian government for being soft on supporters of what is known as the Khalistan movement, which is banned in India but has support among the Sikh diaspora, particularly in Canada.
Mr Trudeau said Wednesday that Indian prime minister Narendra Modi underlined to him at a G-20 summit in India last year that he wanted Canada to arrest people who have been outspoken against the Indian government. Mr Trudeau said he told Modi that he felt the actions fall within free speech in Canada.
Mr Trudeau added that he told Modi his government would work with India on concerns about terrorism, incitement of hate or anything that is unacceptable in Canada. But Mr Trudeau also noted that advocating for separatism, though not Canadian government policy, is not illegal in Canada.
The RCMP said they uncovered evidence of an intensifying campaign against Canadians by agents of the Indian government.
Nijjar, 45, was fatally shot last year in his pickup truck. 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.
Four Indian nationals living in Canada were charged with Nijjar’s murder and are awaiting trial.
