INDIA ASKS CANADA DIPLOMAT TO LEAVE WITHIN FIVE DAYS IN A TIT-FOR-TAT MOVE

Tue 19 September 2023:

Just hours after Ottawa removed the South Asian country’s top intelligence agent and accused it of a part in the death of a Sikh separatist leader, India said on Tuesday that it had dismissed a Canadian diplomat and given him five days’ notice to leave the country.

New Delhi’s decision reflected its “growing concern at the interference of Canadian diplomats in our internal matters and their involvement in anti-India activities”, the ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

A senior Canadian diplomat has been ordered to leave India within 5 days hours after Ottawa expelled an Indian diplomat in an escalating rift over the killing of a Sikh separatist earlier this year#HardeepSinghNijjar #canadaindia #Khalistan #JustinTrudeau #KhalistanReferendum pic.twitter.com/kdPdShcg7r

— INDEPENDENT PRESS (@IpIndependent) September 19, 2023

“The decision reflects the government of India’s growing concern at the interference of Canadian diplomats in our internal matters and their involvement in anti-India activities,” the ministry added.

“The concerneddiplomat has been asked to leave India within the next five days.”

Earlier on Tuesday, India dismissed the Canadian accusation as “absurd and motivated” and urged it instead to take legal action against anti-Indian elements operating from its soil.

The duelling expulsions come as relations between Canada and India are tense. Trade talks have been derailed and Canada just cancelled a trade mission to India that was planned later this year.

Murder of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar

Ottawa on Monday said it was “actively pursuing credible allegations” linking Indian government agents to the murder of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar outside a cultural centre in Surrey, British Columbia on June 18.

Nijjar was reportedly organising an unofficial referendum in India for an independent Sikh nation at the time of this death.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the parliament on Monday he brought up Nijjar’s killing with Modi at the Group of 20 (G20) summit in New Delhi last week. He said he told Modi that any Indian government involvement would be unacceptable and that he asked for cooperation in the investigation.

“Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty,” he said. “In the strongest possible terms, I continue to urge the government of India to cooperate with Canada to get to the bottom of this matter.”

The Sikh independence movement, commonly referred to as the Khalistan movement, is banned in India, where officials see it and affiliated groups as a national security threat. But the movement still has some support in northern India, as well as countries such as Canada and the United Kingdom, which are home to a sizable Sikh diaspora.

Canada has a Sikh population of more than 770,000, or about 2 percent of its total population.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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