India has summoned Canada’s charge d’affaires to New Delhi after diplomatic ties between the two countries reached a new low today. The Foreign Ministry’s summons to Stewart Wheeler came after he criticized the Canadian government for investigating the Indian ambassador and other diplomats as “persons of interest” over the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said India “yesterday received a diplomatic communication from Canada informing it that the Indian High Commissioner and other diplomats are ‘persons of interest’ in a matter related to an investigation in that country”.
The government described the allegations as “nonsense” and a “strategy to defame India for political gains”.
The government issued a sharp denial saying, “The Government of India strongly rejects these absurd allegations and attributes them to the political agenda of the Trudeau government which is focused on vote bank politics.”
“India now reserves the right to take further steps in response to these latest attempts by the Canadian government to make trumped-up charges against Indian diplomats,” the Ministry of External Affairs said.
Following Nijjar’s assassination in 2023, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there were “credible allegations” linking Indian intelligence to the crime, leading to a breakdown in diplomatic relations between New Delhi and Ottawa. India, which designated Nijjar a terrorist in 2020, rejected the allegations as “absurd”.
Now Canada has reportedly named Indian High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma as a ‘person of interest’ in its investigation. India accused Canada of defaming its officials without evidence and using “absurd” claims to justify its failure to curb Khalistani militancy on its soil.
“High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma is India’s most senior serving diplomat with a distinguished career spanning 36 years. He has been Ambassador to Japan and Sudan, while he has also served in Italy, Turkey, Vietnam and China. Charges against him Foreign “The Government of Canada is ridiculous and should be treated with contempt,” the ministry said.
It said that Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau’s hostility towards India has been in evidence for a long time. In 2018, his visit to India, “which was aimed at supporting the vote bank, increased his uneasiness”.
“His Cabinet includes individuals who are openly associated with extremist and separatist agenda with respect to India,” the ministry said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently met Justin Trudeau on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Laos, almost a year after his Canadian counterpart accused India of involvement in the death of a Khalistani terrorist.
Although sources in New Delhi said there were no substantive discussions between the two leaders, Trudeau described the meeting as a “brief exchange.”
“I won’t go into detail about what we talked about, but what I have said many times is that maintaining the safety of Canadians and the rule of law is one of the fundamental responsibilities of any Canadian government and That’s what I’m going to stay focused on,” Trudeau said at a news conference in Vientiane.
Canada is home to approximately 7,70,000 Sikhs, who constitute approximately two percent of the country’s population.
India has been saying that the main issue between the two countries is Canada’s exemption of pro-Khalistan elements operating from Canadian soil.
