India has ordered Canada to withdraw dozens of diplomats from the country. The ‘Financial Times’ reports this today. Ottawa must repatriate about forty diplomats before October 10, the newspaper writes. Previously, the two countries each dismissed a top diplomat.
Relations between the two countries have become tense since the assassination of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accuses India of playing a role in the killing. India calls that accusation absurd.
Sikhs are a religious minority of approximately sixteen million people in India. They mainly live in the northwestern state of Punjab. Some Sikh groups have been campaigning for their own state for decades and occasionally use violence.
The Financial Times quotes people saying that India is threatening to revoke the diplomatic immunity of diplomats still in the country after October 10. Canada has 62 diplomats in India. 41 have to leave the country.
“Terrorist”
The 45-year-old Nijjar was an outspoken supporter of a Sikh state of his own. According to India, he was a terrorist and led a militant separatist group. In the months before Nijjar’s murder, other Sikh leaders also died suddenly. In England, a prominent Sikh died “under mysterious circumstances” and in Pakistan a leader was shot dead in the street.
Canada has the largest Sikh community outside India, with 770,000 people. India wants Canada to cooperate in the prosecution of separatist leaders. The country is said to have unsuccessfully asked Canada for the extradition or arrest of more than twenty individuals.
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