India says it is withdrawing its top envoy to Ottawa and other diplomats because the Canadian government is investigating them as “persons of interest” in an investigation, reigniting a diplomatic row over the killing of a Sikh separatist leader last year.
India-Canada relations have been tense since September 2023 when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada had credible evidence to link Indian agents to the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil earlier that year.
Nijjar supported a Sikh homeland in the form of an independent Khalistani state and was designated by India as a “terrorist” in July 2020.
India has repeatedly denied the allegation that its agents killed him, challenging Canada to share evidence to back its claim.
On Monday, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said it had summoned the Canadian charge d’affaires to denounce the “completely unacceptable” and “baseless targeting” of the Indian high commissioner and other diplomats and officials.
“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,” it said in a statement.
Earlier on Monday, the ministry said it had “received a diplomatic communication from Canada suggesting that the Indian High Commissioner and other diplomats are persons of interest” in the ongoing investigation.
The Canadian government has not commented publicly on the matter. Canada’s foreign affairs department, Global Affairs Canada, did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on Monday, which is a federal holiday.
In its earlier statement, the ministry said India “strongly rejects these preposterous imputations and ascribes them to the political agenda of the Trudeau Government” and reiterated Canada has not provided any proof “despite many requests from our side”.
“This latest step follows interactions that have again witnessed assertions without any facts. This leaves little doubt that on the pretext of an investigation, there is a deliberate strategy of smearing India for political gains,” the statement added.
“India now reserves the right to take further steps in response to these latest efforts of the Canadian Government to concoct allegations against Indian diplomats,” said the statement.
The Indian government also alleged the Trudeau government “has consciously provided space to violent extremists and terrorists to harass, threaten and intimidate Indian diplomats and community leaders in Canada”.
Canada pulled out more than 40 diplomats from India in October 2023 after New Delhi asked Ottawa to reduce its diplomatic presence.
In June this year, a committee of Canadian parliamentarians named India and China as the main foreign threats to its democratic institutions, based on input from intelligence agencies.
India’s envoy in Ottawa, Sanjay Kumar Verma, called the report politically motivated and influenced by Sikh separatist campaigners.
Earlier this year, Trudeau said he hoped India would “engage with us so that we can get to the bottom of this very serious matter”.
Soon after Canada’s allegation, the United States claimed that Indian agents were involved in an attempted assassination plot of another Sikh separatist leader in New York in 2023, and said it had indicted an Indian national who was working at the behest of an unnamed Indian government official.
The assassination plots against Sikh separatist leaders in Canada and the US have tested their relationship with India, as the Western nations hope to forge deeper ties with New Delhi to counter China’s rising global influence.
