TORONTO — Canada accused the Indian government Monday of homicide and extortion intended to silence critics of India living in Canada, escalating a bitter dispute that began last year with the assassination of a Sikh activist.
Canada expelled India’s top diplomat and five others, saying they were part of a vast criminal network. India reciprocated, expelling six Canadian diplomats.
The two countries have been in an intense dispute following the assassination in Canada of a prominent Sikh cleric, Hardeep Singh Nijjar. The government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at the time that his killing had been orchestrated by the Indian government.
Canada is home to the largest Sikh community outside India, where the religious minority lives mostly in the northwestern state of Punjab.
The Indian government says that some Sikhs in Canada are actively involved in a secessionist movement that seeks to carve a Sikh homeland known as Khalistan out of India.
Canadian officials said their investigation had focused on the Indian government’s involvement in a campaign aimed at Canadian Sikh activists.
The breakdown in the relationship between the two countries has gone all the way to the top. Trudeau said Monday that he had confronted his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, about the investigation last week in Laos, where both men were attending a summit.
The Canadian leader said he had asked Modi for India’s cooperation before a meeting between national security officials from both countries in Singapore. The officials were to discuss the involvement of Indian diplomats in what authorities have described as serious criminal activities against Sikhs in Canada.
“I impressed upon him that it needed to be taken very, very seriously,” Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa, Ontario, at a news conference.
Despite the one-on-one discussion between the leaders, the Singapore meeting did not produce the cooperation Canadian officials had sought, leading to the diplomatic expulsions.
“We will never tolerate the involvement of a foreign government threatening and killing Canadian citizens on Canadian soil, a deeply unacceptable violation of Canada’s sovereignty and of international law,” Trudeau said.
Mélanie Joly, Canada’s foreign minister, said that her country had issued the expulsion orders to the six diplomats after the Indian government refused to waive their diplomatic immunity and allow them to participate in the Canadian investigations. Among those kicked out was Sanjay Kumar Verma, India’s high commissioner, or ambassador, to Canada.
Joly said Canada’s law enforcement agencies had identified the six as “persons of interest” in the Nijjar assassination.
“The decision to expel these individuals was made with great consideration,’’ she said, adding that investigators had “gathered ample, clear and concrete evidence.’’
Nijjar was ambushed and killed by three masked men outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Columbia. Three Indian nationals have been arrested and charged to date.
The Indian government, in its own statement Monday, rejected Canada’s account of what had happened to its diplomats. India said it had pulled them out of Canada because of “an atmosphere of extremism and violence” that put them in danger.
The Indian government also said it was expelling six Canadian diplomats from India, including the embassy’s second-highest ranking diplomat, the chargé d’affaires, Stewart Wheeler.
The Indian government has vehemently denied accusations that it was involved in Nijjar’s killing, and maintains that the allegations against it are politically motivated. It says Trudeau is in cahoots with Sikh separatists in Canada because they support his Liberal Party.
A top Canadian law enforcement official, Mike Duheme, on Monday presented the accusations against the Indian government, saying that it had set up a criminal network inside Canada to harass and intimidate Sikhs. He provided few specifics about the allegations, but said the investigation had been aided by the FBI.
“An extraordinary situation is compelling us to speak about what we have discovered in our multiple ongoing investigations into the involvement of agents of the government of India in serious criminal activity in Canada,” said Duheme, who is the head of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The said police were taking the unusual step of going public because of a “significant threat to public safety in our country.”
Duheme said his officers had investigated and charged “a significant number of individuals for their direct involvement in homicides, extortions and other criminal acts of violence.”
He said there had been more than a dozen credible threats to life against members of the Sikh community in Canada. The Indian government agents, including the six diplomats expelled, were based not just in Ottawa, the capital, but also in Vancouver and Toronto and other cities across Canada where Sikhs live.
While Duheme did not detail the means Canadian authorities had used to collect evidence against the Indian government and its agents, he said the investigations had found that it was running a major intelligence-gathering network in Canada. Some of those involved in the network were paid, he said, while others were coerced into helping.
“The information collected by the government of India is then used to target members of the South Asian community,” Duheme said.
India’s intelligence services have long been accused of directing the killings of opponents inside neighboring countries.
Canada’s accusations against India regarding the Nijjar assassination have been bolstered by the findings of an American investigation into a similar, though unsuccessful, plot against a U.S.-based Sikh cleric. Last November, federal prosecutors in New York City said they had found connections between both plots.
The deepening rift between India and Canada comes as the United States, the European Union and other Canadian allies have been trying to court India as a counterweight to Russia. India is a booming middle power on the world stage both in terms of defense and in trade and the economy.
Trudeau said that he had informed his country’s closest intelligence allies about the developments. Together with Canada, the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand make up the so-called Five Eyes intelligence cooperation group.
The accusations against India arise as a Canadian commission is investigating the interference of foreign powers into domestic politics.
A Canadian parliamentary report in June, based on information provided by the country’s intelligence services, identified China and India as the two countries that pose the biggest risk of foreign interference.
Kumar Verma, India’s ambassador to Canada, dismissed the report as politically motivated, and his government on Monday expressed its full support for him. “The aspersions cast on him by the government of Canada are ludicrous and deserve to be treated with contempt,” it said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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