Canada expels Indian diplomat as it probes suspected assassination of Canadian citizen

Toronto: Canada expelled a top Indian diplomat on Monday as it investigates what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called credible allegations that India’s government may have had links to the assassination in Canada of a Sikh activist.

India’s foreign ministry called Canada’s action “absurd” and accused Ottawa of failure to act against “terrorists and extremists”.

Justin Trudeau said he had raised India’s involvement in the shooting directly with Narendra Modi at the G20 summit.Credit: AP

Trudeau said in parliament that Canadian intelligence agencies have been looking into the allegations after Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a strong supporter of an independent Sikh homeland known as Khalistan, was gunned down on June 18 outside a Sikh cultural centre in Surrey, British Columbia.

Trudeau told parliament that he brought up the slaying with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the G20 last week, that he told Modi that any Indian government involvement would be unacceptable and that he asked for co-operation in the investigation.

Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said the head of Indian intelligence in Canada had been expelled as a consequence. “If proven true this would be a great violation of our sovereignty and of the most basic rule of how countries deal with each other,” Joly said. “As a consequence we have expelled a top Indian diplomat.”

On Tuesday, India’s foreign ministry released a statement dismissing the allegation as “absurd and motivated.” The ministry’s added that Trudeau made similar allegations to Modi at the recent G20 summit.

Modi welcomes Trudeau upon his arrival at the G20 Summit in New Delhi this month.Credit: AP

“Such unsubstantiated allegations seek to shift the focus from Khalistani terrorists and extremists, who have been provided shelter in Canada and continue to threaten India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the statement said, adding that India was concerned over supposed inaction of the Canadian government.

Earlier, Trudeau said that “over the past number of weeks Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar”.

Trudeau said Canada has declared its deep concerns to the Indian government.

“Last week at the G20 I brought them personally and directly to Prime Minister Modi in no uncertain terms,” Trudeau said. “Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty.”

Trudeau said his government has been working closely and coordinating with Canada’s allies on the case. “In the strongest possible terms I continue to urge the government of India to cooperate with Canada to get to the bottom of this matter,” he said.

Delhi-based The Wire identified the diplomat as Pavan Kumar Rai, described as the Canadian head of the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s foreign intelligence agency.

Trudeau said he knows there are some members of the Indo-Canadian community who feel angry or frightened, and he called for calm.

Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said Canada’s national security advisor and the head of Canada’s spy service have travelled to India to meet their counterparts and to confront the Indian intelligence agencies with the allegations.

Canada Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly.Credit: AP

He called it an active homicide investigation led by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Joly said Trudeau also raised the matter with US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

“We are deeply concerned about the allegations referenced by Prime Minister Trudeau,” White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson. “We remain in regular contact with our Canadian partners. It is critical that Canada’s investigation proceed and the perpetrators be brought to justice.”

Joly also said she would raise the issue with her peers in the G7 on Monday evening in New York City ahead of the United Nations General Assembly.

A photograph of late temple president Hardeep Singh Nijjar is seen on a banner outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara Sahib in Surrey, British Columbia.Credit: AP

Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said if the allegations are true they represent “an outrageous affront to our sovereignty”.

Janice Stein, a political scientist and international relations expert at the University of Toronto, said to kill a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is astounding.

“It’s tragic for Canada because we have issues of foreign interference with the two largest economies in Asia, China and India. And we have two very large diasporas from both countries. This is not what we want,” Stein said.

“We have the most diverse community in the world in Canada. We have people from everybody’s country. We accept this and we give license [to] Russia to hunt Canadian Ukrainians. You can’t.”

The Khalistan movement is banned in India, where officials see it and affiliated groups as a national security threat. But the movement still has some support in northern India, as well as beyond, in countries like Canada and the United Kingdom which are home to a sizable Sikh diaspora.

India is also a member of the Quad, the strategic grouping that includes Australia, Japan and the US.

Context on Canada and India

Canada has the highest population of Sikhs outside their home state of Punjab in India and the country has been the site of many protests that have irked India.

The Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara Sahib centre in Surrey, British Columbia, where temple president Hardeep Singh Nijjar was gunned down.Credit: AP

Indian leaders say there are some fringe groups in Canada that are still sympathetic to the cause of an independent Sikh state, carved out of India.

September 2023: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi conveyed strong concerns about protests in Canada against India to Trudeau on the sidelines of the G20 summit in New Delhi.

While a Sikh insurgency was suppressed in India in the 1990s, authorities have been wary of any revival of agitation, with a particular focus on small groups of Sikhs in Canada, who support the separatist demand and occasionally stage protests outside Indian embassies.

June 2023: India’s foreign minister, S. Jaishankar, hit out at Canada for allowing a float in a parade depicting the 1984 assassination of then-Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi by her bodyguards, perceived to be glorification of violence by Sikh separatists.

Indira Gandhi was assassinated in 1984 by two Sikh bodyguards after she allowed the storming of the holiest Sikh temple, aimed at flushing out Sikh separatists who demanded an independent homeland to be known as Khalistan. The storming of the temple had angered Sikhs around the world.

March 2023: India summoned Canada’s High Commissioner to convey concern over pro-Khalistan protesters in Canada who breached the security of India’s diplomatic mission and consulates.

The Sikh insurgency of the 1980s and 1990s killed some 30,000 people. Sikh militants were blamed for the 1985 bombing of an Air India Boeing 747 flying from Canada to India in which all 329 people on board were killed.

In 2018, Trudeau assured India that Canada would not support anyone trying to revive a separatist movement in India but he has repeatedly said he respects the right to free speech and assembly of protesters to demonstrate.

AP with staff reporter

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