NEW DELHI
\nIndia and Canada each expelled the other\u2019s ambassador and five other top diplomats, after New Delhi said its envoy had been named among \u201cpersons of interest\u201d following the killing of a Sikh separatist leader.
\nNew Delhi said it was withdrawing its six diplomats from Canada, but an Ottawa government source told AFP they had been expelled, not withdrawn.
\nThe 2023 murder of Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar crashed the country\u2019s diplomatic relations with India after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there were \u201ccredible allegations\u201d linking Indian intelligence services to the crime.
\nThe expulsion of the diplomats\u2013the most senior envoys on both sides\u2013is a major escalation in the row.
\nIndia \u201cdecided to expel\u201d Ottawa\u2019s acting High Commissioner Stewart Wheeler, his deputy and four first secretaries, ordering they leave before midnight on Sunday.
\nOttawa announced similar measures in return, with Canadian police saying they had \u201cevidence pertaining to agents of the government of India\u2019s involvement in serious criminal activity\u201d in Canada.
\nNijjar \u2014 who immigrated to Canada in 1997 and became a citizen in 2015 \u2014 had advocated for a separate Sikh state, known as Khalistan, carved out of India.
\nHe had been wanted by Indian authorities for alleged terrorism and conspiracy to commit murder.
\nFour Indian nationals have been arrested in connection with Nijjar\u2019s murder, which took place in the parking lot of a Sikh temple in Vancouver in June 2023.
\nNew Delhi had earlier said it had \u201creceived a diplomatic communication from Canada suggesting that the Indian High Commissioner and other diplomats are persons of interest\u201d in the ongoing investigation.
\nIt said their envoy, Sanjay Kumar Verma, a former ambassador to Japan and Sudan, was a respected career diplomat and that the accusations were \u201cludicrous\u201d.
\nNew Delhi\u2019s foreign ministry said it had told Verma to return home.
\n\u201cWe have no faith in the current Canadian Government\u2019s commitment to ensure their security,\u201d it said in a statement.
\nIndia on Monday called allegations it was connected to the killing \u201cpreposterous\u201d and a \u201cstrategy of smearing India for political gains\u201d.
\nLast year, the Indian government briefly curbed visas for Canadians and forced Ottawa to withdraw diplomats, and on Monday threatened further action.
\n\u201cIndia reserves the right to take further steps in response to the Trudeau Government\u2019s support for extremism, violence and separatism against India,\u201d the foreign ministry said.
\nThe foreign ministry also summoned Canadian envoy Wheeler, who said that Ottawa had given India the evidence it had demanded.
\n\u201cCanada has provided credible, irrefutable evidence of ties between agents of the Government of India and the murder of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil,\u201d Wheeler told reporters after leaving the ministry.
\n\u201cNow, it is time for India to live up to what it said it would do and look into all those allegations. It is in the interest of both our countries and the peoples of our countries to get to the bottom of this. Canada stands ready to cooperate with India.\u201d
\nIndia then announced his expulsion.
\nCanada is home to around 770,000 Sikhs, who make up about two percent of the country\u2019s population, with a vocal minority calling for an independent state of Khalistan.
\nIn November 2023, the US Justice Department also charged an Indian citizen living in the Czech Republic with allegedly plotting a similar assassination attempt on US soil.
\nProsecutors said in unsealed court documents that an Indian government official was also involved in the planning of that attempt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW DELHI India and Canada each expelled the other\u2019s ambassador and five other top diplomats, after New Delhi said its envoy had been named among \u201cpersons of interest\u201d following the killing of a Sikh separatist leader. New Delhi said it was withdrawing its six diplomats from Canada, but an Ottawa government source told AFP they …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":71697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71682","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\/71682","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=71682"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71701,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71682\/revisions\/71701"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}