India and Canada expelled their diplomats as tensions escalate between the two countries over the killing of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar who was fatally shot dead on June 18 outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Columbia, three years after India designated him as a “terrorist”.
On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told parliament that Canadian security agencies are investigating “credible allegations of a potential link” between Indian government agents and the killing of a prominent Sikh-Canadian activist earlier this year.
“Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty,” Trudeau said on Monday.
India dismissed the allegations as “absurd” and asked Canada instead to crack down on anti-India groups operating in its territory.
On 15 September, Canada postponed an October trade mission to India, in the midst of strained relations between the two countries.
Most recently, during last weekend’s Group of 20 (G20) summit in New Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose not to hold a formal bilateral meeting with Canadian leader Justin Trudeau.
Modi also pulled Trudeau aside to criticise Canada’s handling of recent Sikh protests.
Videos circulated in June showing a controversial parade float in Brampton, Ontario, that was themed after the assassination of Indira Gandhi. The former Indian prime minister had been killed by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984 after she ordered military action against Sikh separatists at the Golden Temple in the state of Punjab.
Nijjar supported the demand for a Sikh homeland in India’s northern state of Punjab, the birthplace of the Sikh religion, which borders Pakistan. He was reportedly organising an unofficial referendum in India for an independent Sikh nation at the time of this death.
A prominent community leader and activist, Canadian media reported that he was involved with a group called “Sikhs for Justice”, which pushes for an independent Sikh state in India.
India officially categorised him as a “terrorist”, saying he was involved in “exhorting seditionary and insurrectionary imputations” and “attempting to create disharmony among different communities” in the country.