Canada expelled six Indian diplomats on Monday, including India’s High Commissioner to Canada, accusing them of being part of a broad criminal network to intimidate and harass Canadian Sikhs.
India responded by expelling six Canadian diplomats.
The expulsions escalated a dispute between the two countries that began with the assassination of a Canadian citizen in British Columbia last year. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused India of orchestrating the brazen killing, setting off a chain of denunciations and diplomatic clashes between the two countries.
Hardeep Singh Nijjar, the president of a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Columbia, was ambushed and shot dead by two masked men on June 18, 2023. He was a Sikh activist who called for an independent nation carved out of northern India.
In September 2023, the Canadian prime minister told lawmakers that “agents of the government of India” had been linked to Mr. Nijjar’s killing, drawing outrage from the Indian government.
On May 3, three Indian men were arrested in Canada and charged with the killing.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a news conference on Monday that it believed the six diplomats were part of a broad criminal network involved in homicides, intimidation, harassment and extortion aimed at Canadian Sikhs.
It said the operations were spread across the country wherever Sikh communities exist. Among other details, they said that the group of Indian agents would collect intelligence to threaten and intimidate Sikhs, either through paid informants or by extorting and threatening individuals within the communities.
After Canada arrested three men in Mr. Nijjar’s killing, the CBC, Canada’s public broadcasting corporation, reported that the suspects belonged to an Indian criminal gang.
The CBC reported that the gang the hit-men were connected to was led by Lawrence Bishnoi, who was accused of several cases of murder, extortion and narcotics trafficking. Officials say he has orchestrated much of it from an Indian jail, where he has been held since 2014.
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