(Ottawa) The Canadian government has expelled India’s number one diplomat, amid police investigations into threats to national security.
Posted at 10:52 a.m.
Updated at 12:21 p.m.
The Trudeau government has not yet formalized the expulsion, but it was confirmed Monday by a Canadian government source who requested anonymity, not being authorized to speak publicly on this delicate issue.
Meanwhile, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Commissioner Mike Duheme announced that allegations of foreign interference and transnational crime have been made directly to the Indian government in recent days.
Investigations revealed that Indian diplomats and consular officers based in Canada took advantage of their official position to engage in clandestine activities such as intelligence gathering for the Indian government.
Mike Duheme, Commissioner of the RCMP
The Canadian announcement of the expulsion of High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma was anticipated by the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which claimed to have decided to recall its head of mission to Canada.
He did not mince his words to express his dissatisfaction with Ottawa in a press release published on his website on Monday.
“Yesterday we received [dimanche] a diplomatic communication from Canada suggesting that the Indian High Commissioner and other diplomats were “persons of interest” in a matter related to an investigation in that country,” it states.
“The Indian government firmly rejects these absurd imputations,” it is also written.
Evoking “an atmosphere of extremism and violence”, the ministry came to the conclusion that “the actions of the Trudeau government endangered [la] security [des diplomates] “. And New Delhi also has “no confidence in the Canadian government’s commitment to ensuring their security”.
This new quarrel between New Delhi and Ottawa comes as Justin Trudeau prepares to testify for a second time before the commission of inquiry into foreign interference. India believes it is not “a coincidence” that these allegations surface.
“This also serves the anti-Indian separatist program that the Trudeau government is implementing for political gains,” accuses the government of Narendra Modi. For his part, he is studying retaliatory measures.
The Canadian-Indian relationship has been frosty for years. It escalated even further in September 2023 when the Prime Minister claimed to have credible evidence that India had ordered the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil.
At the time of publication, Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs had not commented.
Last May, the Indian high commissioner sought to downplay the murder of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, which was at the origin of the renewed tension between the two countries. “There have been unfortunate crimes [ayant visé] people who are currently Canadian citizens,” he argued during a conference in Montreal.
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Shri Sanjay Kumar Verma, High Commissioner of India to Canada
He made these remarks at the Council on International Relations of Montreal (CORIM) a few days after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) arrested three men of Indian nationality in connection with the murder of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
He was a supporter of the creation, in India, of an independent Sikh state called Khalistan.
