(Toronto) India has asked Canada to send back 41 of its 62 diplomats stationed in the country, an official familiar with the matter announced on Tuesday. This escalated the confrontation between the two countries after Canada raised allegations that India may be involved in the murder of a Sikh separatist leader in the suburbs of Vancouver.
Published at 8:30 am.
Rob Gillies Associated Press
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly ahead of the Canadian government’s public response on Tuesday. It confirmed an earlier report by the Financial Times.
Last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Parliament that there were “credible allegations” of Indian involvement in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a 45-year-old Sikh leader who was killed by masked men in Surrey, a Vancouver suburb, in June was killed by armed men. For years, India has alleged that Mr. Nijjar, a Canadian citizen born in India, has ties to terrorism, which Mr. Nijjar denies.
The murder of a Canadian citizen in Canada, home to nearly two million people of Indian origin, would be unprecedented.
India has criticized Canada for years for allowing Sikh separatists, including Mr. Nijjar, free rein.
India has also abolished visas for Canadians. Canada took no retaliatory measures. India also expelled a senior Canadian diplomat after Canada expelled a senior Indian diplomat.
India’s recent expulsions have heightened tensions between the two countries. Mr. Trudeau had frosty relations with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at this month’s Group of 20 meeting in New Delhi, and days later Canada canceled a trade mission to India planned for the fall.
Mr. Nijjar, a plumber, was also one of the leaders of the remnants of a once-powerful movement to create an independent Sikh homeland known as Khalistan. A bloody Sikh insurgency rocked northern India for a decade in the 1970s and 1980s until it was crushed by a government crackdown that killed thousands, including prominent Sikh leaders.
The Khalistan movement has lost much of its political power but still has followers in the Indian state of Punjab as well as in the large Sikh diaspora abroad. Although the active insurgency ended several years ago, the Indian government has repeatedly warned that Sikh separatists are attempting a comeback.