India has asked Canada to repatriate 41 of its 62 diplomats posted in the country, an official familiar with the matter revealed Tuesday, escalating the confrontation between the two countries following Canadian accusations that the India may be involved in the murder of a Sikh separatist leader in British Columbia.
The official agreed to speak to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly ahead of the Canadian government’s official public response, which is expected to follow later today Tuesday. However, he confirmed the information contained in an article in the Financial Times.
Asked about this situation upon his arrival in the House of Commons on Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he wanted to avoid further escalating tensions with India.
“We will continue to take this seriously. It’s a difficult situation with the Government of India, but we have work to do on the ground, we have work to do to advance relations and to resolve these issues,” said Mr. Trudeau.
“We will remain firm. We are not going to try to provoke, but we will continue to be present on the ground,” he added.
For its part, India’s foreign ministry declined to comment.
Two weeks ago, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Parliament that there were “credible allegations” of Indian involvement in the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a 45-year-old Sikh leader who was killed by masked gunmen in June in Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver. For years, India has claimed that Mr. Nijjar, a Canadian citizen born in India, has links to terrorism, which the main person concerned has always denied.
The fact that a foreign government sponsored the assassination of a Canadian citizen in Canada, where nearly two million people of Indian origin live, would be unprecedented.
India has for years criticized Canada for giving free rein to Sikh separatists, including Mr. Nijjar.
India has also canceled visas for Canadians. Canada did not take retaliatory measures, to which Canada did not respond. However, the two countries have already announced that they have expelled a diplomat from their counterpart, shortly after Mr. Trudeau’s speech to the House of Commons.
Allegations about Indian involvement in Nijjar’s assassination are based in part on surveillance of Indian diplomats in Canada, as well as intelligence provided by a major Ottawa ally, another official said Canadian to the Associated Press.
This whole saga has exacerbated tensions between the two countries. Mr. Trudeau had frosty encounters with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the G20 meeting held in New Delhi. A few days later, Canada canceled a trade mission to India planned for this fall.
Mr. Nijjar, a plumber, was also one of the leaders of what remains of a once-powerful movement to create an independent Sikh homeland, known as Khalistan. A bloody Sikh insurgency rocked northern India for a decade in the 1970s and 1980s, until it was crushed by a government crackdown in which thousands were killed, including d Prominent Sikh leaders.
The Khalistan movement has lost much of its political power, but it still has supporters in the Indian state of Punjab, as well as in the large Sikh diaspora abroad. Although the active insurgency ended several years ago, the Indian government has repeatedly warned that Sikh separatists are attempting to make a comeback.