Comparing India to Russia, Joly said Canada’s national police force has linked Indian diplomats to homicides, death threats and intimidation in Canada.
Canada’s foreign minister Mélanie Joly on Friday said the remaining Indian diplomats in Canada are “clearly on notice” not to endanger Canadian lives, as tensions between the two nations escalate over allegations of Indian involvement in the assassination of a Sikh separatist.
Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly.
The diplomatic standoff erupted earlier this week after Canada expelled India’s high commissioner and five other diplomats, accusing them of being linked to a campaign of violence and intimidation against Sikh separatists in Canada.
“We’ve never seen that in our history. That level of transnational repression cannot happen on Canadian soil. We’ve seen it elsewhere in Europe. Russia has done that in Germany and the UK and we needed to stand firm on this issue,” Joly said.
What Canada foreign minister said on Indian diplomats
Asked if other Indian diplomats will be expelled, Joly said: “They are clearly on notice. Six of them have been expelled including the high commissioner in Ottawa. Others were mainly from Toronto and Vancouver and clearly we won’t tolerate any diplomats that are in contravention of the Vienna convention.”
Joly’s remarks come amid allegations by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) that Indian diplomats had allegedly been involved in actions leading to the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist and a designated terrorist in India gunned down last year in British Columbia.
The RCMP alleges that Indian diplomats operating in Canada have shared information about Sikh activists with Indian authorities, who have then passed it along to organized crime groups. These groups, according to Canadian officials, have been linked to extortion, drive-by shootings, and the assassination of pro-Khalistan activists, including Nijjar.
India has vehemently denied the accusations, calling them “absurd” and retaliating by expelling six Canadian diplomats, including the acting high commissioner in New Delhi. The ministry of external affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal dismissed the claims and accused Canada of sheltering individuals wanted for terrorism-related charges in India.
“It is strange that the very people we’ve asked Canada to extradite are now being accused of crimes in Canada,” Jaiswal said, pointing to 26 extradition requests India has filed, some pending for over a decade. He also suggested that Canada had not acted on provisional arrest requests for several individuals linked to terrorism.
The diplomatic row has heightened tensions that were already strained following Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s statement in September 2023, when he suggested that Indian agents were potentially involved in Nijjar’s murder. India had declared Nijjar a terrorist, and his killing outside a gurdwara in Surrey remains a flashpoint in the relationship.
New Delhi has long accused Ottawa of turning a blind eye to the activities of Khalistani separatists. India claims that these activists operate freely in Canada, despite being implicated in terrorism-related cases in India.
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