India and Canada have expelled their top envoys and other diplomats as tensions flared over last year’s killing of a Sikh separatist on Canadian soil.
Trudeau said his government responded after the police began to follow up on allegations that Indian agents were directly involved in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Canadian police have accused Indian agents of involvement in “murder, extortion and violent acts” and targeting supporters of the pro-Khalistan movement, which seeks a separate Sikh state in India.
Delhi dismissed the allegations as “absurd”, accusing Trudeau of pandering to Canada’s large Sikh community for political gain.
Speaking on live television on Monday afternoon, Trudeau said India had made a “big mistake” in supporting “criminal” acts in Canada and his government should have taken the latest action.
“The evidence presented by the RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada’s national police service] it cannot be ignored,” said the prime minister.
“It leads to one conclusion, it is necessary to disrupt the criminal activities that continue to threaten public safety in Canada. That’s why we did it.”
India has strongly denied all the allegations and asserted that Canada has not provided any evidence to support its claims.
The relationship between Delhi and Ottawa has become sour since Trudeau said that Canada has physical evidence linking Indian agents to Nijjar’s murder.
The line led to a the breakdown of tieswhen India asked Canada to withdraw a large number of its communications personnel and stop visa services.
On Monday, an angry statement from India’s Ministry of External Affairs said Canada’s allegations were influenced by Sikh separatist campaigners.
Later that day, it announced that six Canadian diplomats, including Acting High Commissioner Stewart Ross Wheeler, had been asked to leave India on October 19.
Mr. Wheeler was also summoned by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs to explain Canada’s move.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Mr. Wheeler said that Canada has given India the evidence it wanted, and now it has to investigate these allegations.
“It is in the interests of both our countries and the people of our countries to get to the bottom of this,” he said.
Delhi has defended its Chief Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma, citing his “respectable service of 36 years”.
“The actions taken against him by the Canadian government are ridiculous and deserve contempt,” said the newspaper.
India’s foreign ministry also said it was “withdrawing” its top diplomat and other diplomats.
“We do not trust the current Canadian government’s commitment to ensuring its security. Therefore, the Indian government has decided to withdraw the High Commissioner and other targeted diplomats and officials.”
Earlier on Monday, Canadian police said they had taken the unusual step of publicly disclosing details of an ongoing investigation “because of the threat to public safety in our country”.
RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme told reporters at a press conference Monday that there have been “more than a dozen credible and imminent threats to life” that he said were “primarily” focused on members of the pro-Khalistan movement.
He added that the threats are serious enough to warrant RCMP public intervention.
“We got there and saw that we had to deal with the Indian government.”
Officials said a number of Indian agents were involved in criminal activities, but did not confirm they were directly related to the June 2023 killing of Sikh Separatist leader Nijjar.
Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead by two masked gunmen outside the Sikh temple he led in Surrey, British Columbia..
He had been a vocal supporter of the Khalistan movement, which sought a separate state for the Sikhs, and campaigned for it publicly.
India has in the past described him as a terrorist who led a separatist terrorist group – an allegation his supporters call baseless.
Canadian police have called his killing a “targeted attack”.
In September 2023, Trudeau had told the Canadian parliament that the allegations of Indian involvement in the killings were based on Canadian intelligence.
He called the act an affront to Canadian sovereignty.
The strong relationship between the two countries appeared to be slowly thawing behind India restart processing visas in October 2023.
But last week, Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly called the country’s relationship with India “strained” and “very difficult”.
He also said that there is still a threat of killing many people like Nijjar on Canadian soil.
Canada is home to the largest Sikh community outside of India, a small religious group that lives mostly in the Punjab province.
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