Our Bureau
Ottawa
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday said that his government had not provided India with hard evidence but just intelligence regarding the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil.
Testifying at Canada’s foreign interference inquiry, Trudeau said India has been insisting on evidence over allegations leveled by Canada.
“Behind the scenes (were trying) India to co-operate with us. Their ask was…give us the evidence you have on us. Our response was it is within your security agency. You should be looking into how much they know; you should be engaging… ‘No, no but show us the evidence’. At that point, it was primarily intelligence, not hard evidentiary proof. So we said let’s work together…,” he said.
The ties between India and Canada soured after Trudeau alleged in the Canadian Parliament last year that he has “credible allegations” of India’s hand in the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
India has denied all the allegations, calling them “absurd” and “motivated” and has accused Canada of giving space to extremist and anti-India elements in their country. Nijjar, who was designated a terrorist by India’s National Investigation Agency in 2020, was shot and killed outside a Gurdwara in Surrey in June last year.
Trudeau also said during foreign interference inquiry that Canadians who are opponents of Modi government, their information was passed to the Indian government at the highest level and then “information directed through criminal organizations like the Lawrence Bishnoi gang resulted in violence against Canadians on the ground”.
“We wanted to question Indian diplomats but they did not wave their diplomatic immunity which is why we had to ask them to leave,” he said.
India on Monday expelled six Canadian diplomats hours after it summoned Canada’s Charge d’Affaires Stewart Wheeler and conveyed that the “baseless targeting” of the Indian High Commissioner and other diplomats and officials in Canada was completely unacceptable.
MEA said earlier that it was underlined to Canada’s Charge d’Affaires that in an atmosphere of extremism and violence, the Trudeau Government’s actions endangered their safety and the government had decided to withdraw India’s High Commissioner to Canada Sanjay Kumar Verma and other targeted diplomats and officials.
Amid worsening ties between the two countries, India had earlier on Monday “strongly” rejected a diplomatic communication from Canada suggesting that the Indian High Commissioner and other diplomats were “persons of interest” in an investigation and termed it as “preposterous imputations” and part of the political agenda of the Justin Trudeau government.
In response to Trudeau’s comment on Wednesday, Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal stated, “What we have heard today only confirms what we have been saying consistently all along – Canada has presented us no evidence whatsoever in support of the serious allegations that it has chosen to level against India and Indian diplomats.”
“The responsibility for the damage that this cavalier behavior has caused to India-Canada relations lies with Prime Minister Trudeau alone,” Jaiswal added.
