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Indian diplomats expelled for violating sovereignty, international law: Trudeau
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said they have clear and compelling evidence that agents of the Indian government continue to engage in activities that pose a significant threat to public safety
Hours after India announced it withdrew six diplomats from Canada, the Canadian government said it “expelled” them for what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described as a “violation” of sovereignty and international law. “Canada fully respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India. We expect the Indian government to do the same for Canada,” Trudeau said at a press conference in Ottawa.
The comments came hours after India said it received a diplomatic communication from Canada on Sunday regarding India’s high commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma and other diplomats and officials being “persons of interest” in an investigation. India rejected “these preposterous imputations” and ascribed them to the political agenda of the Trudeau government centered around vote bank politics. India later announced the expulsion of six Canadian diplomats.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) alleged the Indian officials were linked to violent criminal incidents, including murder and extortion. Trudeau cited the RCMP’s statement and said they have clear and compelling evidence that agents of the Indian government have engaged in and continue to engage in activities that pose a significant threat to public safety.
“This includes clandestine information gathering techniques, coercive behaviour, and involvement in over a dozen threatening and violent acts including murder. This is unacceptable,” Trudeau said.
Trudeau said Canada’s national security and intelligence advisor Nathalie G Drouin and RCMP deputy commissioner for federal policing Mark Flynn, who met with Indian counterparts over the weekend in Singapore, conveyed the message that six agents of the Indian government were persons of interest in criminal activities. He added New Delhi “refused to cooperate” despite repeated requests.
Trudeau said India made a “fundamental error” in supporting “criminal activity” on Canadian soil. He referred to “patterns of Indian diplomats collecting through questionable means” information on Canadian citizens that was then fed to criminal organisations that would then take violent actions, from extortion to murder, against Canadians. “This is not a choice Canada made to create a chill in Canada-India relations,” he said.
Trudeau said every step of the way they have apprised India of what they know. “I have spoken directly with Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi,” he said. He said the “response” of the Indian government has been to “deny”, “obfuscate”, and to “attack”, including him personally.
Trudeau also discussed the matter with his British counterpart, Sir Keir Starmer. A readout from Trudeau’s office said they “discussed recent developments related to a targeted campaign against Canadian citizens by agents linked to” the Indian government.
Canada’s foreign affairs minister, Mélanie Joly, said the cooperation sought included asking India to “waive” the diplomatic immunity of the six officials so they could be interrogated. She said she also spoke to her Indian counterpart, S Jaishankar, earlier in the day to reiterate the request for cooperation and discussed the matter with him in the Five Eyes (the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada).
A statement from Canada’s foreign ministry quoted Joly as saying the decision to expel six Indian diplomats was made with great consideration and only after the RCMP gathered ample, clear, and concrete evidence. It added the six were identified as persons of interest in the murder of pro-Khalistan figure Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia on June 18 last year. “We continue to ask that the Indian government support the ongoing investigation in the Nijjar case, as it remains in both our countries’ interest to get to the bottom of this.”
Three months after Nijjar’s killing Trudeau told Canadian Parliament there were “credible allegations” of a potential link between Indian agents and the murder. India described those allegations as “absurd” and “motivated.”
