India-Canada diplomatic war intensifies over killing probe

India and Canada’s diplomatic war has intensified after Ottawa named top Indian diplomats in the country as “persons of interest” in an investigation.

The Indian government expelled six top Canadian diplomats. This comes after The Washington Post reported that Canada ordered six Indian diplomats to leave the country in notices that were sent early Monday.

However, India said in a statement it was recalling its diplomats over “threats,” and the Foreign Ministry issued a strongly worded statement blasting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“The Government of India strongly rejects these preposterous imputations,” New Delhi said, alleging the claims are part of Trudeau’s “political agenda” and that his country had failed to provide evidence to support its claims.

India defended its high commissioner to Canada, Sanjay Kumar Verma, calling him its “senior-most serving diplomat with a distinguished career spanning 36 years.”

“The aspersions cast on him by the Government of Canada are ludicrous and deserve to be treated with contempt,” the Foreign Ministry added.

New Delhi added that it had received the news via diplomatic communication from Canada and has summoned the Canadian Charge d’Affaires in India.

The Hill has reached out to Canada’s Foreign Ministry for comment.

This comes more than a year after Trudeau’s allegations that Indian agents were behind the killing of a Sikh separatist leader in the country.

In a speech to Canada’s House of Commons last year, Trudeau said any foreign government involvement in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is “an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty.”

The prime minister doubled down on his claims after initial criticism from India, saying Canada had “credible reasons to believe that agents of the government of India were involved in the killing of a Canadian on Canadian soil.”

Diplomatic relations between the two countries then came to a standstill, with India asking Canada to withdraw a dozen diplomatic staff and suspending visa services.

In June last year, masked gunmen killed Hardeep Singh Nijjar outside a Sikh temple in Vancouver. The 45-year-old separatist leader had previously been designated as a terrorist by India. 

India has long held the opinion that Canada has turned a blind eye toward extremist elements, especially Khalistani secessionists who demand a separate homeland for Sikhs in the Punjab region.

In November of last year, U.S. prosecutors detailed a foiled plot to assassinate a prominent Sikh separatist leader in New York.

An indictment detailed electronic communications and audio and video calls secretly recorded or obtained by U.S. law enforcement where organizers of the plot talked about plans to kill someone in California and at least three other people in Canada, in addition to the victim in New York.

The U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York announced Nikhil Gupta, an Indian national, was facing murder-for-hire charges for allegedly conspiring to assassinate a Sikh separatist leader in New York City earlier this year. Czech authorities arrested and detained Gupta in June 2023.

In a statement Monday, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said their investigations revealed that Indian diplomats and consular officials based in Canada leveraged their official positions to engage in clandestine activities that ultimately targeted “members of the South Asian community.”

“Evidence also shows that a wide variety of entities in Canada and abroad have been used by agents of the Government of India to collect information. Some of these individuals and businesses were coerced and threatened into working for the Government of India. The information collected for the Government of India is then used to target members of the South Asian community,” the statement added.

The statement called the unfolding situation “extraordinary” adding there have been over a dozen “credible and imminent threats to life” for members of the South Asian community, and specifically members of the pro-Khalistan movement.

Updated at 3:42 p.m. EDT