{"id":20294,"date":"2024-10-14T19:18:40","date_gmt":"2024-10-14T19:18:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/?p=20294"},"modified":"2024-10-14T19:18:40","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T19:18:40","slug":"canada-expels-indian-diplomats-as-row-deepens-over-khalistan-leader-assassination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/?p=20294","title":{"rendered":"Canada &#8216;expels&#8217; Indian diplomats as row deepens over Khalistan leader assassination"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Canada has formally expelled India\u2019s High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma and five other diplomats, ahead of the Canadian national police force revealing new details about the Indian government\u2019s connection to \u201cviolent criminal activity\u201d in Canada, mainly targeting pro-Khalistan separatists. Soon after Canadian officials notified India of the expulsion of the six diplomats, New Delhi recalled them, the Canadian sources said. The sources also said that the Canadian police and intelligence have concrete evidence that the six Indian diplomats, including the high commissioner, were involved in the plot to murder Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June, 2023 \u2013 a close ally of Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) founder and General Counsel Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who has survived several assassinations Indian plots. The Canadian government presented the evidence to India last week and the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and told them that its top diplomats were involved in the assassination plots, the sources said. The senior Canadian government official said that Canada has evidence that India has been involved in other murders and violence in this country. Since the slaying of Nijjar, the source said a dozen people of Indian descent Sikhs \u2013 who support Khalistan Referendum &#8211; have been warned there was credible evidence that they could be targets of Indian agents. RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme is set to release the new information today at the Mounties\u2019 headquarters in Ottawa. Before the press conference, the Indian government said it pre-emptively withdrew its High Commissioner to Canada and other diplomats in response to a notice it received on Sunday that they are \u201cpersons of interest\u201d in an investigation. \u201cThe Government of India strongly rejects these preposterous imputations and ascribes them to the political agenda of the Trudeau Government that is cantered around vote bank politics,\u201d the statement from New Delhi said. India said it is withdrawing its top envoy to Ottawa and other diplomats because the Canadian government is investigating them as \u201cpersons of interest\u201d in an investigation, reigniting a diplomatic row over the killing of Nijjar. Soon after Canada expelled Indian diplomats, India announced it has decided to expel the following 6 Canadian Diplomats: Stewart Ross Wheeler, Acting High Commissioner; Patrick Hebert, Deputy High Commissioner; Marie Catherine Joly, First Secretary; lan Ross David Trites, First Secretary; Adam James Chuipka, First Secretary; and Paula Orjuela, First Secretary. They have been asked to leave India by or before 11:59pm on Saturday, October 19, 2024. India-Canada relations have been tensed since September 2023 when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada had credible evidence to link Indian agents to the assassination of Nijjar on Canadian soil earlier that year. On Monday, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said it had summoned the Canadian charge d\u2019affaires to denounce the \u201ccompletely unacceptable\u201d and \u201cbaseless targeting\u201d of the Indian high commissioner and other diplomats and officials. \u201cWe have no faith in the current Canadian Government\u2019s commitment to ensure their security. Therefore, the Government of India has decided to withdraw the High Commissioner and other targeted diplomats and officials,\u201d it said in a statement. Canada pulled out more than 40 diplomats from India in October 2023 after New Delhi asked Ottawa to reduce its diplomatic presence. In June this year, a committee of Canadian parliamentarians named India as the main foreign threats to its democratic institutions, based on input from intelligence agencies. Soon after Canada\u2019s allegations after Nijjar\u2019s killing, the United States claimed that Indian agents were involved in an attempted assassination plot of SFJ leader Pannun in New York in 2023. $500,000 allocated to track expelled Indian High Commissioner By expelling six diplomats, PM Trudeau has demonstrated his government&#8217;s unwavering commitment to bringing to justice those who facilitated the assassination of Nijjar on Canadian soil irrespective of the pressure Trudeau Government faced from Modi government and pro Hindutva lobby in Canada, Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) General Counsel Gurpatwant Singh Pannun said after Canadia expelled India\u2019s top diplomats in a bombshell development. Since July 2023, SFJ has been consistently writing to PM Trudeau asking to investigate and expel Verma for providing logistical support for the assassination of Nijjar and for heading a spy network in Canada. Allocating a hefty budget of $500,000, the body announced that even after Verma\u2019s expulsion and departure from Canada, it will continue tacking his movements and whereabouts in pursuit of bringing him to justice for his role in the assassination of Shaheed Nijjar. Pannun said: \u201cExpelling Verma proves that Indian High Commissioner and his team of diplomats were not only involved in providing logistics and intelligence information to the foot soldiers who assassinated Nijjar but also escalated their criminal activities directly threatening the life and liberty of Pro-Khalistan Sikhs on Canadian soil by operating a robust Spy Network manned by pro Hindutva Indo Canadian.\u201d \u201cHate speech by Indo Canadian MP Chandra Arya against peaceful pro Khalistan activism is an apt example of mouth pieces of Indian government funded and propelled by Indian diplomatic missions.\u201d He further said: \u201cIn July 2023, when pro Khalistan Sikhs demanded investigation of Indian Diplomats\u2019 role in the assassination Nijjar, MP a known admirer and follower of PM Modi, spewed venom against peaceful Khalistan Referendum in Canada as \u2018Snakes in our backyard\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Canada has formally expelled India\u2019s High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma and five other diplomats, ahead of the Canadian national police force revealing new details about&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20295,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}