India slams Trudeau's 'casualness' after accusations against New Delhi

India on Thursday criticized Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for being “flippant” for accusing New Delhi of violating his country’s sovereignty with the 2023 assassination in Vancouver of a Sikh separatist leader, which Ottawa attributed to Indian intelligence.

“The responsibility for the damage that this casual behaviour has done to India-Canada relations lies solely with Prime Minister Trudeau,” said Randhir Jaiswal, a spokesman for India’s Ministry of External Affairs.

Canada claims that India orchestrated the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a naturalized Canadian Sikh separatist, who was gunned down in the parking lot of a Sikh temple in Vancouver in June 2023. India has denied any involvement, calling the allegations “absurd.”

But at a hearing before the Foreign Interference Commission on Wednesday, Trudeau said Canada had “clear indications, and certainly now even clearer, that India has violated Canada’s sovereignty.”

Acting Canadian High Commissioner Stewart Wheeler, who was ordered by India to leave the country by Saturday evening, had said Ottawa had provided “credible and compelling evidence of links between Indian government agents and the murder of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil.”

Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said Thursday that India had not seen the evidence.

“Canada has not presented us with any evidence to support the serious allegations it has chosen to make against India and Indian diplomats,” he said in a statement.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who immigrated to Canada in 1997 and has been a Canadian citizen since 2015, argued in favour of of an independent Sikh state in India, Khalistan.

He was wanted by Indian authorities for alleged “terrorism” and conspiracy to commit murder, charges he denied.

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