India has suspended visa processing in Canada, the service provider announced Thursday, after Ottawa held India responsible for the killing of a Sikh leader in Vancouver.
“Important notice from the Indian Mission: Due to operational reasons, Indian visa services have been suspended with effect from September 21, 2023 until further notice,” reads the portal of BLS International, an Indian visa service provider. the world.
On Thursday, the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi issued a statement asking citizens studying in that North American country to pay special attention to the “rising anti-India stances and political tolerance of hate crimes.”
Indians should also avoid going to places in Canada where “Indian diplomats and sectors of the Indian community are the target of threats,” the ministry said.
Ottawa and New Delhi, two key strategic partners in security and trade, are embroiled in a diplomatic dispute after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alleged that India was linked to the killing last June on Canadian soil of the proponent independence from the Sikhs.
Canada has not yet produced any evidence of Indian involvement in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a 45-year-old Sikh leader who was killed by gunmen in Surrey, outside Vancouver.
For years, India has alleged that Nijjar, an Indian-born Canadian citizen, had links to terrorism, a claim Nijjar has always denied.
When he was killed, Nijjar was trying to organize an unofficial referendum in the Sikh diaspora for independence from India.
Trudeau’s accusation was followed by Canada’s expulsion of an Indian diplomat in Ottawa and New Delhi for calling the accusation “absurd”, as well as the expulsion of a Canadian diplomat.
Indian authorities labeled Nijjar a terrorist in 2020, accusing him of supporting demands for an independent Sikh homeland known as Khalistan, which began as an insurgency in the Indian state of Punjab in the 1970s and 1980s but was defeated by the Indian government was knocked down.
The movement has since lost much of its political power, but it still has supporters in the Sikh-majority Punjab, as well as among the significant Sikh diaspora abroad.
India’s Foreign Ministry also said Trudeau’s accusations “are intended to divert attention from terrorists and extremists in Khalistan, who have taken refuge in Canada and continue to threaten India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
The ministry regularly issues travel advisories after asking Indian citizens in September last year to exercise caution when traveling to Canada due to the “sharp increase in incidents of hate crimes, sectarian violence and anti-India activities” in that country.
Source: DN
