Sat 19 October 2024:

Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly on Friday put the last of India’s diplomats in the country “on notice” that Canada will not tolerate any more criminal activity on its territory.

The warning follows the expulsion earlier this week of six Indian diplomats after Canada’s national police force said there is ample evidence of murder and extortion by agents in Canada operating on orders from New Delhi.

India’s high commissioner was among those kicked out of Canada after he was identified as a person of interest in the June 18, 2023, assassination of Canadian Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia.

India has hotly denied the charges and it ordered six Canadian diplomats to leave the country.

But Joly said evidence shows that New Delhi has used criminals in Canada for violent acts, including the targeting of Sikh separatists who want to carve out a Sikh state in India.

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“There was definitely a threat and that’s exactly why the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) decided to take the extraordinary measure of making public the fact that Canadians were being intimidated, victims of extortion or even (received) death threats because agents and diplomats from India were linked to these criminal actions,” Joly said at a news conference in Montreal, reported the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

“We’ve never seen that in our history. That level of transnational repression cannot happen on Canadian soil.”

The India-Canada tension revolves around the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian Sikh leader and Khalistan separatist, who was shot dead in June 2023. Nijjar supported the creation of an independent Sikh state, which India considers a terrorist movement. Canada accused Indian agents of being involved in Nijjar’s killing, which escalated tensions.

India denied the allegations, calling them baseless. Diplomatic ties worsened, with both countries expelling each other’s diplomats and suspending talks. The case highlights a growing strain between India and Canada over Khalistan separatism and national security concerns.

US charges Indian agent

The United States has charged a former Indian intelligence officer for allegedly directing a foiled plot to assassinate an American citizen who advocates for Khalistan – an independent Sikh state that would be carved out of India.

The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said on Thursday that it had registered “murder-for-hire and money laundering charges” against Vikash Yadav for trying to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.

The indictment of Yadav, for the first time, implicates the Indian government directly in the attempted assassination of a dissident.

The Indian government has said it is co-operating with the ongoing investigation in the US. It has not responded to the specific charges against Yadav yet.

The development comes after Nikhil Gupta, an Indian national also charged in the case, was extradited to the US from a prison in Prague earlier this year.

The FBI has accused Indian agents of involvement in an assassination attempt on Pannun, a dual US-Canadian citizen, saying Pannun was targeted for exercising his “First Amendment rights” to free speech.

“The FBI will not tolerate acts of violence or other efforts to retaliate against those residing in the U.S. for exercising their constitutionally protected rights,” said FBI director Christopher Wray in a statement.

India has labelled Pannun a terrorist, though he denies the allegation, claiming to be an activist advocating for Khalistan.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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