Canadian diplomat is ordered to leave hours after Ottawa expelled Indian diplomat over the killing of a Sikh separatist.
NEW DELHI. Canada expelled a top Indian diplomat as it investigates what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called credible allegations its government may have had links to the assassination in Canada of a Sikh activist, an accusation that India rejected as “absurd.”
Trudeau said in Parliament on Monday 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 center in Surrey, British Columbia.
Trudeau told Parliament that he brought up the slaying with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Group of 20 summit last week in New Delhi. He said he told Modi that any Indian government involvement would be unacceptable and that he asked for cooperation in the investigation.
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India expels Canadian diplomat in tit-for-tat move as row over assassinated Sikh activist deepens.
New Delhi’s decision reflected its “growing concern at the interference of Canadian diplomats in our internal matters and their involvement in anti-India activities”, the ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
The duelling expulsions come as relations between Canada and India are tense. Trade talks have been derailed and Canada just cancelled a trade mission to India that was planned later this year
Protests by pro-Sikh independence groups in Canada have angered Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
Ottawa on Monday said it was “actively pursuing credible allegations” linking Indian government agents to the murder of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar outside a cultural centre in Surrey, British Columbia on June 18.
Nijjar was reportedly organising an unofficial referendum in India for an independent Sikh nation at the time of this death.
India dismissed the Canadian accusation as “absurd and motivated” and urged it to instead take legal action against anti-Indian elements operating from its soil.