India holds Canada's Trudeau accountable for diplomatic fallout

India slammed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday as “cavalier” over his handling of the disastrous diplomatic fallout following the 2023 killing of a Sikh separatist in Canada.

New Delhi held firm its defiant stance towards Ottawa – an approach in sharp contrast to its compliant attitude this week towards the United States, where India is also accused of directing a separate assassination plot.

Canada has alleged that India arranged the killing of a Sikh separatist, naturalised Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar, murdered in the parking lot of a Sikh temple in Vancouver in June 2023.

India has called the allegations “preposterous”.

But Trudeau, at a parliamentary inquiry on Wednesday, said Canada had “clear… indications that India had violated Canada’s sovereignty”.

Canada’s top envoy to New Delhi, Stewart Wheeler, who India has ordered to leave by Saturday night, has said Ottawa had provided “credible, irrefutable evidence of ties between agents of the Government of India and the murder of a Canadian citizen”.

India’s foreign ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal on Thursday said they had not seen that evidence.

“Canada has presented us (India) no evidence whatsoever in support of the serious allegations that it has chosen to level against India and Indian diplomats,” he said in a statement.

“The responsibility for the damage that this cavalier behaviour has caused to India-Canada relations lies with Prime Minister Trudeau alone.”

Tit-for-tat

Nijjar – who immigrated to Canada in 1997 and became a citizen in 2015 – had advocated for a separate Sikh state, known as Khalistan, carved out of India.

He had been wanted by Indian authorities for alleged terrorism and conspiracy to commit murder.

Four Indian nationals have been arrested in connection with Nijjar’s murder.

Last year, the Indian government briefly curbed visas for Canadians and this week both countries expelled each other’s ambassadors.

New Delhi’s response to Washington has been very different, with the US State Department on Wednesday saying India had told it that an intelligence operative accused of directing an assassination plot on US soil was no longer in government service.

US prosecutors charged an Indian citizen last November over a foiled attempt in New York to kill an advocate for a separate Sikh homeland.

The indictment described an “Indian government employee,” who was not publicly named, as recruiting the hitman and directing the assassination plot remotely, including by arranging the delivery of $15,000 in cash.

India’s Hindustan Times, quoting an unnamed US official, said Monday that India not only removed but arrested the employee on “local charges.” The State Department did not confirm the arrest.