- Saturday, October 19, 2024
Mélanie Joly compared India to Russia and said that Indian diplomats have been linked to homicides, death threats and intimidation in Canada
By: Shajil Kumar
CANADA’S minister of foreign affairs Mélanie Joly on Friday (18) said the remaining Indian diplomats in the country are “clearly on notice” after Canada named the Indian High Commissioner in Ottawa as a person of interest in the assassination of a Sikh separatist leader.
Joly said the government would not tolerate any diplomats who contravene the Vienna Convention or put the lives of Canadians at risk.
India expelled six Canadian diplomats on Monday and announced that it was withdrawing its High Commissioner in Canada after dismissing Ottawa’s allegations linking the envoy to the probe into the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Canada, however, said it had expelled six Indian diplomats.
Joly, comparing India to Russia, said Canada’s national police force has linked Indian diplomats to homicides, death threats and intimidation in Canada.
“We’ve never seen that in our history. That level of transnational repression cannot happen on Canadian soil. We’ve seen it elsewhere in Europe. Russia has done that in Germany and the UK and we needed to stand firm on this issue,” she said in Montreal.
Asked if other Indian diplomats will be expelled, Joly said: “They are clearly on notice. Six of them have been expelled including the high commissioner in Ottawa. Others were mainly from Toronto and Vancouver and clearly, we won’t tolerate any diplomats that are in contravention of the Vienna convention.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police went public this week with allegations that Indian diplomats were targeting Sikh separatists in Canada by sharing information about them with their government back home.
Calling out the notorious Bishnoi crime gang, the RCMP said top Indian officials were passing information about Sikh separatists to Indian organised crime groups who were targeting the activists.
The relations between India and Canada came under severe strain following Prime Minister Trudeau’s allegations in September last year of the “potential” involvement of Indian agents in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was gunned down in Surrey, British Columbia.
India has rejected the Canadian accusations as absurd and politically motivated.
India has repeatedly criticised Trudeau’s government for being soft on supporters of the Khalistan movement who live in Canada.
Canadian Sikhs feel threatened
Since July 2022, Moninder Singh, spokesperson for a Sikh advocacy group in Canada’s British Columbia province, has had police come to his door two times in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey.
Singh said the police warned him that he faced an imminent risk of assassination, though they did not say from whom.
These warnings forced the 43-year-old Canadian to stay away from his home for months at a time, he said – away from his wife and children, ages 15 and 11.
Singh’s experience illustrates the threats that some members of Canada’s Sikh community – the largest outside India’s Sikh-majority Punjab state – are facing at a time of mounting tensions between the two governments.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the country’s national police service, said this week it has communicated more than a dozen threats to people like Singh who are advocating for the creation of Khalistan.
More than 30 people gathered Friday to protest outside the Indian consulate in Toronto. Kuljeet Singh, a spokesperson for Sikhs for Justice, called on Canada to shut the country’s Indian consulates down.
“We believe India remains a threat to Canada’s sovereignty, Canada’s freedom of speech and Canada’s freedom of expression,” Singh said.
Balpreet Singh, legal counsel for the World Sikh Organization of Canada advocacy group, said the Sikh community has “seen a rise in violence over the past few months in terms of the targeting of Sikh activists, in terms of extortions.”
Moninder Singh welcomed Canada’s recent actions. “The way they’re dealing with it now, I think, is helpful to the community to build some confidence,” he said. (Agencies)
