New Delhi announced this Tuesday the expulsion of a senior Canadian diplomat, in response to Ottawa’s accusation that India was involved in the assassination, in Canada, of a separatist leader of Indian origin.
“Canada’s High Commissioner to India was summoned today and informed of the Government of India’s decision to expel a senior Canadian diplomat,” the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.
New Delhi’s decision reflects its “growing concern over the interference of Canadian diplomats in internal affairs and their involvement in anti-India activities,” the Ministry of External Affairs explained in the same note.
This Tuesday, the Ministry had already considered absurd the accusations by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, which implicated New Delhi in the murder of a Sikh activist in Canada.
Canada expelled a senior Indian diplomat on Monday, the day Trudeau revealed that his country’s intelligence services implicated Indian authorities in the crime.
“Any involvement by a foreign government in the murder of a Canadian on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty,” Trudeau said, speaking in the lower house of Canada’s parliament.
Singh Nijjar, shot on June 18 by unknown assailants in the parking lot of a Sikh temple, was charged with terrorism by Indian authorities for advocating the creation of an independent country in the Khalistan state of Punjab for the ethnic and religious minority. Sikh. .
On September 1, the Canadian government announced the suspension of talks with India to sign a free trade agreement, without explaining the reasons. Canada also canceled a trade mission to India scheduled for October.
About 1.8 million people of Indian origin live in Canada, of which about 770,000 are Sikhs.
The leader of the social democratic New Democratic Party (NPD), Jagmeet Singh, the fourth largest party in Canada’s parliament, is Sikh.
Source: TSF
