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Canada and India expelled each others’ most senior envoys, dramatically widening their rift as Canadian police leveled sweeping allegations that Indian diplomats and agents are implicated in “escalating” homicides and extortion.
Indian High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma and five other officials, including Toronto’s top diplomat, were ordered to leave Canada on Monday. Global Affairs Canada said India had refused to waive the officials’ diplomatic immunity so they could cooperate in an investigation of a “targeted campaign” against Canadians.
Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said the decision to expel the officials was made only after police gathered “ample, clear and concrete evidence” that identified them as persons of interest in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian Sikh activist murdered in British Columbia last year.
“We continue to ask that the Indian government support the ongoing investigation in the Nijjar case, as it remains in both our countries’ interest to get to the bottom of this,” Joly said in a statement.
India claimed it withdrew the officials after they were named as persons of interest in an investigation. It later announced it had expelled six Canadian diplomats, including the top envoy in New Delhi.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will address the developments in a news conference in Ottawa later on Monday. The diplomatic expulsions and wide-ranging allegations against India mark a further breakdown of ties between the two countries and may complicate US efforts to court India as a counter-weight to China in the Indo-Pacific region.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police called an extraordinary news conference Monday, citing a threat to public safety. Commissioner Mike Duheme said the agency has “learned a significant amount of information about the breadth and depth of criminal activity orchestrated by agents of the government of India.”
Attempts to collaborate with Indian law enforcement failed and Canadian officials felt a public intervention had become necessary, Duheme said. The RCMP accused Indian officials of leveraging their positions to conduct clandestine activities — secretly gathering information that was then used to target members of Canada’s south Asian community.
There have been “well over a dozen credible and imminent threats to life” against members of the Canadian South Asian community, Duheme said. The threats specifically targeted people involved in promoting an independent Sikh state to be carved out of India. The RCMP added it had evidence tying agents of India to homicides and the use of organized crime.
About eight people have been arrested and charged in homicide cases, and at least 22 relating to extortion, and “some of these have connections to the government of India,” Assistant Commissioner Brigitte Gauvin said at the news conference. She also said police believe there’s an Indian government link to the Lawrence Bishnoi criminal gang, which began in India and is believed to have spread to Canada.
The two countries have been seized by a diplomatic dispute since Trudeau’s allegation last year of “credible” links between Indian agents and the killing of Nijjar, the Sikh separatist and Canadian citizen.
That allegation provoked a fierce backlash by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, with India expelling dozens of Canadian diplomats and restricting travel. Modi’s government has repeatedly denied any involvement in the murder of Nijjar, who India had declared a terrorist.
India accused Trudeau’s government of baselessly targeting its officials and endangering their safety.
“We have no faith in the current Canadian Government’s commitment to ensure their security,” India’s Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.
The Indian government disclosed earlier Monday that it had received a diplomatic communication from Canada that Verma and other officials were “persons of interest” in an investigation.
India’s government didn’t specify the investigation, but the statement referred to allegations made by Trudeau in September 2023, when the Canadian leader first publicly accused India of involvement in the Nijjar murder.
Gauvin said Indian diplomats and consular officials taking part in criminal activity would constitute a contravention of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
Canadian police have charged multiple Indian nationals in Nijjar’s killing. US prosecutors in a separate case have accused an Indian government agent of directing a thwarted plot to assassinate Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a Sikh separatist and US citizen, on American soil. After those allegations, which included references to the Nijjar case, the Indian government formed a committee to look into the issue.
On Monday, the State Department said the Indian investigating team would visit Washington this week to discuss the Department of Justice case against Nikhil Gupta, an Indian citizen who is accused of trying to hire a hitman to kill Pannun on orders from an unnamed Indian government employee. Gupta has pleaded not guilty.
India has “has informed the United States they are continuing their efforts to investigate other linkages of the former government employee and will determine follow up steps, as necessary,” the State Department said.
--With assistance from Sudhi Ranjan Sen, Iain Marlow and Derek Decloet.
(Updates with new information beginning in first paragraph.)
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