LONDON: Canada has formally expelled India’s High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma and five other diplomats, ahead of the Canadian national police force revealing new details about the Indian government’s connection to “violent criminal activity” in Canada, mainly targeting pro-Khalistan separatists.
Soon after Canadian officials notified India of the expulsion of the six diplomats, New Delhi recalled them, the Canadian sources said.
The sources also said that the Canadian police and intelligence have concrete evidence that the six diplomats, including High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma, were involved in the plot to murder Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June, 2023 – a close ally of Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) founder and General Counsel Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who has survived several assassinations Indian plots.
The Canadian government presented the evidence to India last week and the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and told them that its top diplomats were involved in the assassination plots, the sources said.
The senior Canadian government official said that Canada has evidence that India has been involved in other murders and violence in this country. Since the slaying of Nijjar, the source said a dozen people of Indian descent Sikhs – who support Khalistan Referendum – have been warned there was credible evidence that they could be targets of Indian agents.
RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme is set to release the new information today at the Mounties’ headquarters in Ottawa.
Before the press conference, the Indian government said it pre-emptively withdrew its High Commissioner to Canada and other diplomats in response to a notice it received on Sunday that they are “persons of interest” in an investigation.
“The Government of India strongly rejects these preposterous imputations and ascribes them to the political agenda of the Trudeau Government that is cantered around vote bank politics,” the statement from New Delhi said.
India said it is withdrawing its top envoy to Ottawa and other diplomats because the Canadian government is investigating them as “persons of interest” in an investigation, reigniting a diplomatic row over the killing of Nijjar.
Son after Canada expelled Indian diplomats, India announced it has decided to expel the following 6 Canadian Diplomats: Stewart Ross Wheeler, Acting High Commissioner; Patrick Hebert, Deputy High Commissioner; Marie Catherine Joly, First Secretary; lan Ross David Trites, First Secretary; Adam James Chuipka, First Secretary; and Paula Orjuela, First Secretary.
They have been asked to leave India by or before 11:59pm on Saturday, October 19, 2024.
India-Canada relations have been tense since September 2023 when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada had credible evidence to link Indian agents to the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil earlier that year.
On Monday, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said it had summoned the Canadian charge d’affaires to denounce the “completely unacceptable” and “baseless targeting” of the Indian high commissioner and other diplomats and officials.
“We have no faith in the current Canadian Government’s commitment to ensure their security. Therefore, the Government of India has decided to withdraw the High Commissioner and other targeted diplomats and officials,” it said in a statement.
Canada pulled out more than 40 diplomats from India in October 2023 after New Delhi asked Ottawa to reduce its diplomatic presence.
In June this year, a committee of Canadian parliamentarians named India as the main foreign threats to its democratic institutions, based on input from intelligence agencies.
Soon after Canada’s allegations after Nijjar’s killing, the United States claimed that Indian agents were involved in an attempted assassination plot of SFJ leader Pannun in New York in 2023.
