Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke at a parliamentary inquiry Wednesday in more detail about the diplomatic escalation with India earlier in the week.
Canadian police and the government on Monday released details of a dispute over the alleged killing of a Sikh independence activist on Canadian soil last year, but authorities in Ottawa say officials from New Delhi’s Hindu nationalist government were involved. are.
Ottawa announced that it had asked six Indian diplomats to leave the country, but India later said it had recalled them due to safety concerns, and India in turn gave Canadian diplomats a few days to leave the country. Ta.
Canadian Prime Minister’s Remarks
Prime Minister Trudeau said Canadian National Police released the charges against the Indian diplomats because they exposed a broader and continuing pattern of violence in Canada, including drive-by shootings and extortion.
“There were clear, and certainly clearer than ever, signs that India had violated Canada’s sovereignty,” Prime Minister Trudeau said at the inquiry into the foreign interference allegations.
“We have no intention of provoking India or starting a conflict with India,” Trudeau said. “The Indian government made a terrible mistake in thinking it could similarly aggressively interfere with Canada’s security and sovereignty. To ensure the safety of Canadians, we must respond.”
Canada’s prime minister made the comments two days after Ottawa expelled six Indian diplomats, linking them to the murder of Sikh separatist and Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has announced that it has identified India’s top diplomat and five other diplomats as persons of interest, prompting their expulsion.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the inquiry that intelligence efforts made it “very clear, incredibly clear that India was involved in this killing and that Indian government personnel were involved in the killing of Canadians on Canadian territory.” He said he had received an explanation.
Prime Minister Trudeau told the committee Canada is working with India to resolve the issue more quietly. Image: Justin Tang/The Canadian Press/AP/picture Alliance
Prime Minister Trudeau says public accusations are a last resort
Prime Minister Trudeau also said the government initially sought to keep the investigation private and had repeatedly reached out to India over a long period of time.
Trudeau said if Canada was trying to embarrass or provoke India over the issue, the government could have made the allegations public as early as the G20 summit in India in 2023. He said no.
It was an opportunity to turn a “big moment for India” into a “very unpleasant summit” for the host nation, he said.
“We have chosen to continue working with India behind the scenes to get India to cooperate,” he said, adding that he had raised the issue in direct talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Trudeau said he then began releasing some information only after the atmosphere soured and Canada repeatedly refused to cooperate with the investigation.
India-Canada relations hit low point over Sikh murder
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Indian government denounces allegations as ‘ridiculous’
India on Monday disputed Canada’s claims that it had expelled six diplomats, saying it was withdrawing them from Canada because it did not have confidence that their safety could be guaranteed.
The newspaper said the allegations related to the killing were “ridiculous” and a “strategy to malign India for political gain”.
India also said it had asked six Canadian diplomats to leave the country by Saturday.
Canada’s Sikh community is the largest outside India and is concentrated in electorally important suburban areas.
previous diplomatic retaliation
India reacted angrily last year to Prime Minister Trudeau’s first public assertion that New Delhi was involved in the murder.
Nijjar was shot dead by two masked assailants as he left a Sikh temple near his home in Surrey, western British Columbia.
In response to the allegations, India suspended visas for Canadians and both countries expelled several senior diplomats from the other country.
Until the latest expulsion, relations had been slowly improving.
Nijjar, who immigrated to Canada in 1997 and became a citizen in 2015, campaigned for independence from India and the creation of a Sikh state known as Khalistan.
He was wanted by Indian authorities on charges of terrorism and murder conspiracy.
Four Indian nationals living in Canada have been charged with Nijal’s murder and are awaiting trial.
“Runaway democracy”
DW spoke to Canadian lawyer Jaskaran Sandhu, director of the World Sikh Organization, who argued that India has become a “rogue state engaged in state-sponsored terrorism” in the West.
He claimed that criminal activity in the West can be traced back to India’s Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his allies.
Mourners hold a day-long funeral for Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, British Columbia. Image: Darryl Dyck/ZUMA Press/IMAGO
“India has unleashed organized criminals and gangs in Canada to undermine Canadian society, Canada, and the Sikh-Canadian diaspora with the purpose of killing Sikh activists.”
“There are Western countries, including countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States, but also countries such as Russia, China, and Iran, which have historically taken actions of this nature and engaged in cross-border repression and foreign interference. I have done it.”
“India, which is supposed to be a democratic country, is committing extrajudicial and extraterritorial violence against Canada…This is a democratic country going out of control.”
US says India fires operative on similar charges in failed plot
Meanwhile, the United States on Wednesday said it had been informed by New Delhi that an intelligence officer accused of orchestrating an assassination plot on U.S. soil had been removed from his position in the Indian government.
U.S. prosecutors indicted an Indian national last November in connection with a disastrous attempt to kill another Sikh homeland supporter in New York.
The indictment says an unnamed “Indian government official” recruited hired hitmen and conducted the assassination plot remotely.
rc/msh (AFP, AP, DPA, Reuters)
