In tit-for-tat move, India asks Canada diplomat to leave country in 5 days

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Canadian diplomat ordered to leave the country in five days, hours after Ottawa expels Indian diplomat over the killing of a Sikh separatist.

A senior Canadian diplomat has been ordered to leave India, the Indian foreign ministry said, hours after Ottawa expelled an Indian diplomat in an escalating rift over the killing of a Sikh separatist earlier this year.

New Delhi’s decision reflected its “growing concern at the interference of Canadian diplomats in our internal matters and their involvement in anti-India activities”, the foreign ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

The duelling expulsions come as relations between Canada and India are tense. Trade talks have been derailed and Canada just cancelled a trade mission to India that was planned later this year.

Protests by pro-Sikh independence groups in Canada have angered Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

Canada on Monday said it was “actively pursuing credible allegations” linking Indian government agents to the murder of the Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar outside a cultural centre in Surrey, British Columbia on June 18.

Nijjar was reportedly organising an unofficial referendum in India for an independent Sikh nation at the time of this death.

India dismissed the Canadian accusation as “absurd and motivated” and urged it instead to take legal action against anti-Indian elements operating from its soil.

Last year, the Indian authorities announced a cash reward for information leading to Nijjar’s arrest, accusing him of involvement in an alleged attack on a Hindu priest in India.

The Sikh independence, or Khalistan, movement is banned in India, where officials see it and affiliated groups as a national security threat. But the movement still has some support in northern India, as well as countries like Canada and the United Kingdom which are home to a sizable Sikh diaspora.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the parliament on Monday he brought up Nijjar’s killing with Modi at the Group of 20 (G20) Summit last week. He said he told Modi that any Indian government involvement would be unacceptable and that he asked for cooperation in the investigation.

“Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty,” he said. “In the strongest possible terms I continue to urge the government of India to cooperate with Canada to get to the bottom of this matter.”

On Tuesday, India’s foreign ministry released a statement, dismissing the allegation and saying Trudeau had made similar allegations to Modi.

“Such unsubstantiated allegations seek to shift the focus from Khalistani terrorists and extremists, who have been provided shelter in Canada and continue to threaten India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the statementsaid, referring to the proposed name of a Sikh homeland.

Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said a top diplomat, who she said was the head of Indian intelligence in Canada, was expelled as a consequence.

“If proven true this would be a great violation of our sovereignty and of the most basic rule of how countries deal with each other,” Joly said. “As a consequence we have expelled a top Indian diplomat.”