Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has accused India of making a “horrific mistake” as the diplomatic row between the two nations intensified.
Speaking at a public inquiry this week, Mr Trudeau criticised India, accusing the South Asian country of interfering with Canada's sovereignty and vowing to respond.
“We are not looking to provoke or create a fight with India,” Mr Trudeau said on Wednesday.
“The Indian government made a horrific mistake in thinking that they could interfere as aggressively as they did in the safety and sovereignty of Canada. We need to respond in order to ensure Canadians’ safety.”
The public hearing came after the death in June 2023 of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian citizen who was murdered outside a Sikh temple in Canada.
Three Indian men were arrested in early 2024 and charged with his murder amid speculation that India’s government may have been involved. Officials in Delhi, where Nijjar was identified as a terrorist, deny the claims.
Tensions between the two nations have continued to grow since the incident.
Both countries restricted visa access for nationals wishing to visit each nation, but the bans were later lifted.
So what exactly has contributed to crumbling diplomatic relations and what does it mean for the two countries?
What’s happening between India and Canada?
Mr Nijar was a Sikh leader who had moved to Canada from India in 1997. He had previously called for the creation of an independent Sikh nation in India’s state of Punjab.
Sikhs make up two per cent of India’s population, and Indian authorities later branded him a “terrorist”.
In the run-up to his death, local reports have implied that Mr Nijar had been warned by Canadian Intelligence that there might be threats to his safety. He was shot and killed by two masked gunmen on July 18, 2023.
Mr Trudeau then said that his government was investigating “credible allegations potentially linking” India to Mr Nijar’s murder. Delhi officials slammed the allegation as “absurd” and tensions have continued to escalate.
Following the claims, Canada reportedly removed 41 diplomats from India amid frosty tensions.
In October 2023, India resumed visa operations for Canadian nationals, but the row didn’t end there.
In early 2024, India’s High Commissioner said the nation refused to give Canada information about Nijjar’s killing until Canada also shared its investigation.
Then, in October 2024, Canada expelled six Indian diplomats over the killing, with Mr Trudeau saying at the time: “We will never tolerate the involvement of a foreign government threatening and killing Canadian citizens on Canadian soil.”
India also expelled six Canadian diplomats in what appears to be a tit-for-tat diplomatic move.
On Tuesday, an Air India plane had to make an emergency landing in Canada after a “security threat” was posted online.
The airline said the flight, bound for Chicago, landed in the city of Iqaluit where the passengers were taken off and “re-screened”.
An online statement said it had been “subject to a number of threats in recent days” — all of which had proved to be hoaxes.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs said on Thursday that Canada had presented “no evidence whatsoever” to support its “serious allegations” that Indian government agents had targeted Canada-based Sikh separatists, including Mr Nijar.
Why did Canada accuse India of an assassination?
Canada hasn’t publicly provided any proof of India’s involvement in Mr Nijar’s murder. According to AP, an anonymous official confirmed that Mr Trudeau had reportedly spoken to the US administration about their findings.
When Mr Trudeau first made the allegations, he said: “Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty. Canada is a rule-of-law country; the protection of our citizens and defence of our sovereignty are fundamental.”
Days later, he added: “We are simply laying out the facts as we understand them, and we want to work with the government of India to lay everything clear and to ensure there are proper processes.
“India and the government of India need to take this matter with the utmost seriousness.”
How India and Canada’s diplomatic relations crumbled
Canada is home to one of the largest overseas communities of Indian origin. The two nations have shared fruitful commercial and trade ties in the past.
However, relations have soured since last year.
India has claimed that Canada was sympathising with the Sikh separatist movement. It accused the North American country of harbouring “terrorists and extremists”.
In 2023, India’s foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said: “For us, how Canada has dealt with the Khalistani issue has been a long-standing concern because, very frankly, they seem to be driven by vote-bank politics.”
What is the Khalistan movement?
The Khalistan movement is a separatist organisation created by Sikhs to create a sovereign state in India’s Punjab.
Sikhism was born in Punjab and the majority of people in the state follow the religion despite it being a minority belief in wider India.
Sikh separatists have called on multiple occasions for the creation of Khalistan to be created in Punjab. These demands even led to a violent insurgency in the 1970s and Eighties.
Before his death, Mr Nijjar was a prominent campaigner calling for the creation of Khalistan.
