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    • Protests in India claim interior minister targeted Sikh activists in Canada
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    Protests in India claim interior minister targeted Sikh activists in Canada

    Pabio Posted on

    New Delhi — India on Saturday formally protested Canadian government allegations that the country’s powerful interior minister, Amit Shah, ordered the targeting of Sikh activists in Canada, calling them “absurd and baseless.”

    Relations between the two countries deteriorated after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last year that there were credible allegations that the Indian government had links to the killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada. India vehemently rejected this accusation.

    New Delhi – long concerned about Sikh separatist groups – has increasingly accused the Canadian government of giving free rein to separatists in a once-strong movement aimed at creating an independent Sikh homeland, known as Khalistan, in India.

    The diplomatic row led to the expulsion of the two countries’ top diplomats last month.

    “The Government of India protests in the strongest possible terms against the absurd and baseless references made to the Union Home Minister of India,” Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson for the Indian Foreign Ministry, told reporters on Saturday.

    Jaiswal also said a Canadian diplomat in New Delhi was summoned on Friday and handed him a letter formally protesting the allegations. “Such irresponsible actions will have serious consequences on bilateral relations,” he warned.

    Canadian Deputy Foreign Minister David Morrison told members of Parliament’s national security committee on Tuesday that he had confirmed Shah’s name to the Washington Post, which first reported the allegations. Morrison did not explain how Canada knew of Shah’s alleged involvement.

    Canadian authorities have repeatedly said they have shared evidence with India, whose officials deny receiving any evidence. New Delhi calls these allegations ridiculous.

    Nijjar was a local leader of the Khalistan movement, banned in India. India designated him a terrorist in 2020 and, at the time of his death, was seeking his arrest for his alleged involvement in an attack on a Hindu priest in India. He lived in Canada, where about 2% of the population is Sikh, for almost three decades.

    Shah, 60, is responsible for India’s internal security, serving as the country’s interior minister. He is widely considered the second most powerful politician in India after Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Shah has also been a close aide of Modi for decades.

    Canada is not the only country to accuse Indian officials of plotting an assassination on foreign soil. The US Department of Justice announced criminal charges in mid-October against an Indian government employee in connection with an alleged foiled plot to kill a Sikh separatist leader living in New York.

    Vikash Yadav, who authorities say led the New York plot from India, faces murder-for-hire charges in a planned killing that prosecutors say was supposed to precede a series of other politically motivated killings in the United States and Canada.

    New Delhi then expressed concern and said India was taking the allegations seriously.

    Pabio
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