Falling in popularity and facing a tough election, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau launches a frontal attack on India on the Nijjar killing issue. But he gives no evidence. What is behind such reckless allegations?
Our Bureau
Ottawa/New Delhi/New York
The continuing diplomatic row between India and Canada underwent a fresh escalation this week when Canada declared India’s High Commissioner and other diplomats as “persons of interest” in the investigation of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s death. Following this, India decided to call back its High Commissioner and five other diplomats from Canada. India has repeatedly accused Canada of not taking action against extremist and separatist elements in the country for “vote bank politics”.
The fresh escalation from Trudeau came an year ahead of the next elections. Trudeau’s Liberal Party faces a mounting task amid plummeting approval ratings in the country. Recently, Jagmeet Singh’s New Democratic Party also pulled out of his coalition government.
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.
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. 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.
Meanwhile, top sources have rejected claims made by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other officials about presenting “credible evidence” to India regarding the killing of Nijjar. Sources said that Canada’s approach, since the beginning, has been to make “vague accusations” and put the burden of denial on India. Sources further said that Trudeau, during the press conference was saying, “the same old things for the same old reasons.”
While addressing the press conference on Monday, Trudeau accused agents of the Indian government on Monday of engaging in “clandestine information-gathering techniques, coercive behavior targeting Canadians, and involvement in threatening and violent acts.”
Sources said, “The central assertion from all Canadian officials is that credible evidence has been presented to India. This was also repeated by their Cd’A to the press. This is simply not true. From the very beginning, the Canadian approach has been to make vague accusations and put the burden of denial on India.”
According to Indian sources, no specifics regarding the connection of certain individuals to India were provided. Sources said, “At the RCMP press briefing, assertions were made about connections of certain individuals to India. In no case were any specifics provided. There was also talk about holding people accountable. But it was never made clear who and for what.”
Sources termed it absurd that the Canadian government after intensively engaging the High Commissioner over the last year has now chosen to target him. Citing evidence from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Trudeau claimed that Indian government officials were involved in activities that pose threat to public safety.
Meanwhile, after Canadian Prime Minister admitted that his government had not provided hard evidentiary proof when it accused India of being involved in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, the Ministry of External Affairs said Justin Trudeau “only confirms” what India has been saying “consistently all along.”
The MEA also held Trudeau’s “cavalier behavior” responsible for damaging India-Canada relations. “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,” said MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal in an official statement last night in response to Trudeau’s comment on Wednesday.
The leader of the People’s Party of Canada, Maxime Bernier, has said that Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was shot dead outside the gurdwara in Surrey in 2023, was not Canadian but a “foreign terrorist who used fraudulent documents to claim asylum in Canada several times starting in 1997.”
In a post on X, Bernier said that authorities should have deported Nijjar after his fake asylum claim, like the hundreds of thousands of fake asylum claimants who are in Canada right now. He called for taking away Nijjar’s citizenship posthumously to rectify the administrative error.
He said that allegations made by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Liberal government regarding Indian diplomats engaging in criminal activities in Canada are “highly serious” and stressed that they need to be addressed decisively if proven true.
“He was actually a foreign terrorist who used fraudulent documents to claim asylum in Canada several times starting in 1997. His claims were rejected but he was nevertheless allowed to stay in this country and was somehow granted citizenship in 2007. Nijjar wasn’t a Canadian. We should perhaps posthumously take away his citizenship to right this administrative error. He should have been deported after his first fake asylum claim, like the hundreds of thousands of fake asylum claimants who are in Canada right now,” he added.
The allegations of Chinese interference in Canada’s elections have labelled Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a “weak leader” because of which he took a “conscious decision” of targeting India to distract public’s attention from the controversy as well as other domestic issues, foreign affairs expert, Robinder Sachdev said.
He also drew a parallel between the ‘Chinagate controversy’ surrounding Canadian premier and the Watergate scandal against former US President Richard Nixon. Sachdev said, “Canada is not taking any actions, Canada doesn’t have any empathy, Canada is displaying no empathy with regards to India. The reason being Trudeau has fallen trap to a Chinagate. Just like Watergate, which was a scandal of American democracy brought by Nixon, similarly, China gate is a scandal brought by Trudeau.”
“China has been interfering in Canadian elections since 2019 and 2021. There are huge controversies on that. In order to divert and distract attention from Chinagate, in which Trudeau is being labelled as a weak leader, Trudeau very wisely thought to amplify, to play up India to distract attention within his own country on his leadership failures. So, we can expect more of this as Trudeau took a conscious decision of targeting India to deflect from his own problems and troubles regarding Chinagate,” he said.
Reacting to the diplomatic row between Canada and India, Canadian security expert, Joe Adam George, has said that the problem lies with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s conduct of foreign policy affairs, stressing that both he and Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly are terribly out of their depth when it comes to issues related to foreign affairs.
In an interview, he also spoke about Canada’s stance on the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. He stressed that the Canadian government, instead of supporting their long-time ally, Israel, often throws it out of the bus.
When asked whether there will be a reset in India- Canada relationship if Trudeau is voted out, Joe Adam George said, “The problem fundamentally lies with Prime Minister Trudeau’s conduct of foreign policy matters. Both him and Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly are terribly out of their depth when it comes to foreign affairs matters. We saw it play out in the Middle East, in the way they’ve treated Israel, which is, again, like India, a long-time ally of Canada.”
“But, in fact, just last week it was reported that Foreign Affairs Minister Joly said that she on writing got a significant number of Arab Muslims who she needs to appease, because their support for Palestine and hence they would often throw Israel on the bus instead of supporting them in the fight against Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian regime. This is exactly the same, and now we see the same case with India,” he further said.
Amid the escalating diplomatic row between India and Canada, Congress leader Pawan Khera on Thursday said that the opposition will stand with the government and speak in one voice, adding that no country had ever dared to put such grave accusations on India.
“No country had ever dared to put such grave accusations on India. This is unprecedented and we will not tolerate it. When it comes to matters of foreign policy and national security, the opposition will stand with the government and speak in one voice. The government needs to ensure this by taking the opposition and the LoP into confidence by briefing about the happenings,” Khera said.
At least on this issue, all Indian parties seem to talking in one voice.
