NEW DELHI
\nIndia withdrew its envoy to Canada on Monday along with other officials and diplomats who Ottawa named as \u201cpersons of interest\u201d in a matter related to an investigation in the country, the foreign ministry said.
\nNew Delhi rejected the \u201cpreposterous imputations\u201d of the Canadian assertion, made in a diplomatic communication on Sunday, saying it was part of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau\u2019s \u201cpolitical agenda\u201d centred around \u201cvote bank politics\u201d.
\nThe Indian foreign ministry also said it summoned the Canadian Charge d\u2019Affaires on Monday and informed him that the \u201cbaseless targeting\u201d of its diplomats and officials in Canada was \u201ccompletely unacceptable\u201d.
\n\u201cWe have no faith in the current Canadian government\u2019s commitment to ensure their security. Therefore, the Government of India has decided to withdraw the High Commissioner and other targeted diplomats and officials,\u201d it said in a statement.
\nIndia also conveyed that it \u201creserves\u201d the right to take further steps in response to the Canadian government\u2019s \u201csupport for extremism, violence against India\u201d, the statement said.
\nRelations between New Delhi and Ottawa have been frosty since September 2023, when Trudeau said that Canada had credible evidence linking Indian agents to the assassination of a Sikh leader that year, prompting a strong reaction from New Delhi, which denied the allegation.
\nIndia has repeatedly said Canada has not shared any evidence to back its claim.
\n\u201cThis latest step follows interactions that have again witnessed assertions without any facts. This leaves little doubt that on the pretext of an investigation, there is a deliberate strategy of smearing India for political gains,\u201d India said earlier on Monday.
\nCanada pulled out more than 40 diplomats from India in October 2023 after New Delhi asked Ottawa to reduce its diplomatic presence.
\nIn June, a committee of Canadian parliamentarians had named India and China as the main foreign threats to its democratic institutions, based on input from intelligence agencies.
\nIndia\u2019s envoy in Ottawa, Sanjay Kumar Verma, called the report politically motivated and influenced by Sikh campaigners.
\nEarlier this year, PM Trudeau, referring to the separatist leader\u2019s assassination, said he hoped India would \u201cengage with us so that we can get to the bottom of this very serious matter\u201d.
\nSoon after Canada\u2019s allegation, the US claimed that Indian agents were involved in an attempted assassination plot of another Sikh leader in New York in 2023, and said it had indicted an Indian national who was working at the behest of an unnamed Indian government official.
\nUnlike its angry response to Canadian allegations, however, India expressed concern after the US raised the issue, dissociating itself from the plot, and launching an investigation.
\nThe assassination plots against Sikh leaders in Canada and the US have tested their relationship with India, as the Western nations hope to forge deeper ties with New Delhi to counter China\u2019s rising global influence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW DELHI India withdrew its envoy to Canada on Monday along with other officials and diplomats who Ottawa named as \u201cpersons of interest\u201d in a matter related to an investigation in the country, the foreign ministry said. New Delhi rejected the \u201cpreposterous imputations\u201d of the Canadian assertion, made in a diplomatic communication on Sunday, saying …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":71636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71626"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71643,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71626\/revisions\/71643"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}