New Delhi October 14: India has decided to withdraw its High Commissioner as well as other “targeted” diplomats and officials from Canada, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said here on Monday, the website The Wire reported.
Earlier, it rebuked the Canadian government for considering the High Commissioner and other diplomats “persons of interest” in the assassination of a pro-Khalistan activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Saying that as the Canadian government had with its actions “endangered their safety” in “an atmosphere of extremism and violence”, India no longer had “faith in the current Canadian government’s commitment” to ensure their safety and was thus withdrawing them from Canada, the MEA told the Canadian charge d’affaires.
Earlier in the day, the MEA announced that Canada had informed it that its High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma and other diplomats were now considered “persons of interest” in the ongoing investigation into the June 2023 assassination in British Columbia of Canadian national and pro-Khalistan activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
The unprecedented move, which could push strained bilateral relations to breaking point, triggered a blistering response from the MEA, which said that India “strongly rejects these preposterous imputations and ascribes them to the political agenda of the Trudeau government that is centred around vote bank politics.”
In Canadian law, the term ‘person of interest’ is generally used to describe someone whom the authorities believe may either be connected to a criminal offence – in this case, the murder of Nijjar – or possess information relevant to the crime but who is not yet considered a suspect who can be formally charged.
“Since Prime Minister Trudeau made certain allegations in September 2023, the Canadian Government has not shared a shred of evidence with the Government of India, despite many requests from our side,” the MEA statement said.
“This 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.”
In September last year, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the Canadian parliament that his country’s security agencies had “credible” intelligence that the Indian government was behind Nijjar’s killing.
That public statement followed several attempts to raise the matter with India privately, deputy foreign minister David Morrison told an official commission of inquiry last week.
But Trudeau decided to go public, said the Globe and Mail, when he found out in September that the newspaper had learned about India’s alleged role and was going to report the story:
“The information did come out. It came out via leaks and it was after those leaks that the Prime Minister spoke in the House of Commons to say that Canada had credible intelligence about potential links between the government of India and the murder of Mr. Nijjar,’ Mr. Morrison said.”
The fact that Indian diplomats in Ottawa are now “persons of interest” in the investigation was publicly disclosed not by the Canadian side – which has so far made no public statement – but by the MEA’s own statement today, October 14, which noted that this information was contained in a “diplomatic communication” received on October 13.
Link to Pannun plot?
Several weeks after Trudeau’s allegations, the United States unsealed a federal indictment against an Indian national, Nikhil Gupta, and an unnamed Indian government official, for conspiring to assassinate a US national, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun. Pannun is an advocate for Khalistan and is wanted in India for terrorist offences.
The Washington Post subsequently identified the Indian official as Vikram Yadav, an operative with the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency.
Though Gupta is now in US custody, his trial has yet to begin. Meanwhile, Pannun filed a civil suit against several Indian officials last month – including National Security Adviser Ajit Doval. One consequence of this was that Doval was kept out of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s delegation which visited New York for the UN General Assembly in September.
US and Canadian officials say the Nijjar killing and the Pannun plot was the handiwork of the same group of officials, noting the fact that Gupta and Yadav shared virtually real-time images of Nijjar’s murder with the man they had allegedly contracted to kill Pannun. The man turned out to be an undercover FBI agent.
Trudeau accused of ‘naked interference in Indian politics’
The MEA’s statement today is its strongest response ever since the diplomatic row over the murder of a Nijjar erupted late last year. In its latest statement, the MEA has directly accused Trudeau of being hostile to India.
“Prime Minister Trudeau’s hostility to India has long been in evidence. In 2018, his visit to India, which was aimed at currying favour with a vote bank, rebounded to his discomfort. His Cabinet has included individuals who have openly associated with an extremist and separatist agenda regarding India. His naked interference in Indian internal politics in December 2020 showed how far he was willing to go in this regard,” said the MEA statement.
Although India had ascribed a “political agenda of the Trudeau government” when it first began its investigation of alleged Indian officials in the killing of Nijjar, the latest statement directly accuses Prime Minister Trudeau of being personally hostile to India.
The MEA statement added that Trudeau’s government was dependent on a political party, whose leader openly espouses a separatist ideology vis-à-vis India.
The reference is to the New Democratic Party and its leader, Jagmeet Singh. The NDP has 25 seats and its support allows Trudeau’s Liberals – with 160 seats – to cross the majority mark in the House of Commons, which has 368 seats. But last month, Singh announced the NDP was withdrawing its support to Trudeau.
“Under criticism for turning a blind eye to foreign interference in Canadian politics, his Government has deliberately brought in India in an attempt to mitigate the damage. This latest development targeting Indian diplomats is now the next step in that direction. It is no coincidence that it takes place as Prime Minister Trudeau is to depose before a Commission on foreign interference. It also serves the anti-India separatist agenda that the Trudeau Government has constantly pandered to for narrow political gains,” said the MEA statement.
“To that end, the Trudeau Government has consciously provided space to violent extremists and terrorists to harass, threaten and intimidate Indian diplomats and community leaders in Canada. This has included death threats to them and to Indian leaders. All these activities have been justified in the name of freedom of speech. Some individuals who have entered Canada illegally have been fast-tracked for citizenship. Multiple extradition requests from the Government of India in respect of terrorists and organized crime leaders living in Canada have been disregarded,” said the MEA statement.
“High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma is India’s senior most serving diplomat with a distinguished career spanning 36 years. He has been Ambassador in Japan and Sudan, while also serving in Italy, Turkiye, Vietnam and China. The aspersions cast on him by the Government of Canada are ludicrous and deserve to be treated with contempt,” added MEA.
Threat of reciprocal measures
The statement also held out the prospect of punitive action by New Delhi against Canadian diplomats stationed in India:
“The Government of India has taken cognizance of the activities of the Canadian High Commission in India that serve the political agenda of the current regime. This led to the implementation of the principle of reciprocity in regard to diplomatic representation. India now reserves the right to take further steps in response to these latest efforts of the Canadian Government to concoct allegations against Indian diplomats.”
Last year, in response to Trudeau’s public accusations, India had expelled 41 Canadian diplomats, stopped all visa services for Canadians and asked Ottawa to drastically bring down the number of its diplomats in line with India’s diplomatic presence.
In April this year, The Wire had reported that the Canadian government has reduced the number of local staff at its missions in India due to a shortage of supervisory personnel to oversee them.
Earlier, a report submitted by Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) at a public inquiry into foreign interference accused the Indian government of trying to interfere in Canada’s domestic politics by influencing diaspora communities and trying to get favourable individuals elected through illicit funding and disinformation campaigns.
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