Canada and India expel diplomats in escalating dispute over an assassination

Canada and India each expelled six diplomats on Monday in tit-for-tat moves as part of an escalating dispute over the June 2023 assassination of a Sikh activist in Canada.

A senior Canadian government official said that Canada was expelling six Indian diplomats, including the high commissioner after police uncovered evidence of ongoing violent criminal activity linked to the Indian government.

Shortly afterwards, the Indian foreign ministry said it was expelling six Canadian diplomats. It had said earlier on Monday that India was withdrawing its diplomats, after rejecting Canada’s notification that the Indian ambassador was a “person of interest” in the assassination.

A second senior Canadian official said that Canada had expelled the Indian diplomats first before they withdrew.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last year that there were credible allegations that the Indian government had links to the June 2023 assassination in Canada of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) commissioner Mike Duheme said that police have evidence allegedly tying Indian government agents to homicides and other violent acts in Canada. He declined to provide specifics.

“The team has learned a significant amount of information about the breadth and depth of criminal activity orchestrated by agents of the government of India, and consequential threats to the safety and security of Canadians and individuals living in Canada,” Mr Duheme said.

RCMP assistant commissioner Brigitte Gauvin called it extremely concerning.

“Indian diplomats and consular officials are to protect the interests of their nationals based in Canada and their national interest and not to be part of criminal activity or intimidation, so we take that very seriously. That is without a doubt a contravention of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations,” Ms Gauvin said.

India has rejected the accusation as absurd.

Mr Nijjar, 45, was fatally shot in his car in June 2023 after he left the Sikh temple he led in the city of Surrey, British Columbia. An Indian-born citizen of Canada, he owned a plumbing business and was a leader in what remains of a once-strong movement to create an independent Sikh homeland.

India designated him a terrorist in 2020 and at the time of his death had been seeking his arrest for alleged involvement in an attack on a Hindu priest.

In response to the allegations, India told Canada last year to remove 41 of its 62 diplomats in the country. Ever since, the relations between the two countries have been frosty.

The Indian foreign ministry said on Monday that “India reserves the right to take further steps in response to the Trudeau government’s support for extremism, violence and separatism against India”.

The ministry also summoned the top Canadian diplomat in New Delhi and told him that “the baseless targeting” of the Indian high commissioner, or ambassador and other diplomats and officials in Canada “was completely unacceptable”.

“We have no faith in the current Canadian government’s commitment to ensure their security,” it said.

Stewart Wheeler, the Canadian diplomat who was directed to leave India, told reporters after being summoned that his government has shared “incredible and irrefutable evidence of ties between agents of the government of India and the murder of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil”.

Mr Wheeler said India must investigate the allegations and that Canada “stands ready to co-operate with India”.