(Toronto) Portraits of Narendra Modi trampled, Indian flags burned: Hundreds of Sikhs demonstrated outside India’s diplomatic missions in Canada on Monday, a week after Justin Trudeau’s shocking statement to New Delhi.
Posted at 8:38 p.m.
“We are not safe here in Canada,” complains Joe Hotha, a member of the Sikh religious community in Toronto, referring to the murder of Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar in the west of the country in June.
Last Monday, the Canadian Prime Minister suggested in Parliament that New Delhi was involved in the assassination of this Sikh leader, triggering a major diplomatic crisis between the two nations.
“Our prime minister (Justin Trudeau) has said everything in Parliament, there are no more excuses,” said Harpar Gosal, a Sikh Canadian from Toronto, along with other protesters.
Carrying the yellow flag of Khalistan, the independent state that Sikhs want to establish in the Punjab region of northern India, he came to demonstrate against “Indian terrorists” in front of the Indian consulate.
PHOTO COLE BURSTON, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Like him, several hundred Sikh Canadians gathered in Toronto, but also in Ottawa and Vancouver, to denounce the actions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
Canada is home to the largest Sikh community in the world outside of India. As of 2021, 770,000 Canadians profess Sikhism, representing 2% of the country’s population.
The Indian government, for its part, called the Canadian allegations “absurd” and denied “any act of violence in Canada.”
It also advised its nationals against traveling to certain Canadian regions “given the increase in anti-India activities” and “temporarily” stopped processing visa applications in Canada.
Since then, diplomatic relations between the two countries have been at their lowest point, marked by mutual expulsions of diplomats, while Justin Trudeau has repeatedly called on Indian authorities to cooperate in the investigation.
Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead in June by two masked men in the parking lot of the Surrey Sikh temple he led, near Vancouver, British Columbia. He died on site from his injuries.