'Clear indications' India violated Canada's sovereignty: Trudeau

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused India on Wednesday of violating his country's sovereignty, as diplomatic tensions soar over the 2023 killing of a Sikh separatist in Vancouver.

At a parliamentary inquiry on foreign interference, Trudeau addressed what he characterized as broad efforts by Indian representatives to silence critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government on Canadian soil.

His comments echoed remarks he made earlier this week, after both countries expelled each others' ambassador and five other top diplomats.

Ottawa has linked Modi's government to the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, an advocate for an independent Sikh state who shot dead in June 2023 in the parking lot of a Sikh temple in Vancouver.

Beyond the killing of Nijjar, Trudeau said national police had evidence that Canadians faced intimidation, violence and other threats from those acting in concert with the Indian government.

Canadian police said on Monday they had credible evidence that Indian agents including India’s high commissioner to Canada were linked to the murder of the Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijar on Canadian soil in June 2023 and accused Delhi of a broader effort to target Indian dissidents in Canada.

Trudeau said the decision by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to disclose details about such conduct on Monday was "entirely anchored in public safety."

The RCMP had evidence that "violence towards Canadians... has been enabled by and in many cases directed by the Indian government," Trudeau told the inquiry.

"We had clear and certainly now even clearer indications that India had violated Canada's sovereignty," he said.

The RCMP was trying to disrupt "the chain of activities that was resulting in drive-by shootings, home invasions, violent extortion and even murder across Canada, particularly in the South Asian community," the prime minister said.

Trudeau further detailed conduct that he said involved Indian "diplomats collecting information on Canadians who are opponents or in disagreement with the Modi government."

He said that information was then passed along to "the highest levels within the Indian government," and then "through criminal organizations like the Lawrence Bishnoi gang to then result in violence against Canadians on the ground."

India's Bishnoi crime gang has a grim reputation for assassinations and extortion on its home soil, but the RCMP have accused it of possible involvement in Nijjar's killing.

The RCMP named the Bishnoi Group as an organized crime entity used by India to target members of the South Asian diaspora and Sikh separatists.

Trudeau said India's intimidation tactics in Canada were not limited exclusively to the Sikh community.

- 'Double down on attacks' -

Trudeau also addressed Canada's efforts to engage India about its concerns.

When he raised the issue with Modi at the G-20 meeting in India in September 2023, two months after Nijjar's killing, Modi explained there were people living in Canada who were critical of the Indian government who Modi "would like to see arrested," Trudeau told the inquiry.

When Ottawa recently presented its latest allegations to New Delhi, Trudeau said the Indian response was "to double down on attacks against this government... but also to arbitrarily eject dozens of Canadian diplomats from India on absolutely no cause."

Trudeau told the inquiry that his government does not want to be in a situation "of picking a fight with a significant trading partner."

Nijjar -- who immigrated to Canada in 1997 and became a citizen in 2015 -- had advocated for a separate Sikh state, known as Khalistan, carved out of India.

He had been wanted by Indian authorities for alleged terrorism and conspiracy to commit murder.

Four Indian nationals have been arrested in connection with Nijjar's murder.

India on Monday called allegations it was connected to Nijjar's killing "preposterous" and a "strategy of smearing India for political gains."

Last year, the Indian government briefly curbed visas for Canadians and forced Ottawa to withdraw diplomats, and this week threatened further action.

India's reaction 

India slammed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday as "cavalier" over his handling of the disastrous diplomatic fallout following the 2023 killing of a Sikh separatist in Canada.

New Delhi held firm its defiant stance towards Ottawa -- an approach in sharp contrast to its compliant attitude this week towards the United States, where India is also accused of directing a separate assassination plot.

Canada has alleged that India arranged the killing of a Sikh separatist, naturalised Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar, murdered in the parking lot of a Sikh temple in Vancouver in June 2023.

India has called the allegations "preposterous".

But Trudeau, at a parliamentary inquiry on Wednesday, said Canada had "clear... indications that India had violated Canada's sovereignty".

Canada's top envoy to New Delhi, Stewart Wheeler, who India has ordered to leave by Saturday night, has said Ottawa had provided "credible, irrefutable evidence of ties between agents of the Government of India and the murder of a Canadian citizen".

India's foreign ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal on Thursday said they had not seen that evidence.

"Canada has presented us (India) no evidence whatsoever in support of the serious allegations that it has chosen to level against India and Indian diplomats," he said in a statement.

"The responsibility for the damage that this cavalier behaviour has caused to India-Canada relations lies with Prime Minister Trudeau alone."

- Tit-for-tat -

Nijjar -- who immigrated to Canada in 1997 and became a citizen in 2015 -- had advocated for a separate Sikh state, known as Khalistan, carved out of India.

He had been wanted by Indian authorities for alleged terrorism and conspiracy to commit murder.

Four Indian nationals have been arrested in connection with Nijjar's murder.

Last year, the Indian government briefly curbed visas for Canadians and this week both countries expelled each other's ambassadors.

New Delhi's response to Washington has been very different, with the US State Department on Wednesday saying India had told it that an intelligence operative accused of directing an assassination plot on US soil was no longer in government service.

US prosecutors charged an Indian citizen last November over a foiled attempt in New York to kill an advocate for a separate Sikh homeland.

The indictment described an "Indian government employee," who was not publicly named, as recruiting the hitman and directing the assassination plot remotely, including by arranging the delivery of $15,000 in cash.

India's Hindustan Times, quoting an unnamed US official, said Monday that India not only removed but arrested the employee on "local charges."

The State Department did not confirm the arrest.