TORONTO – Canada has recalled 41 of its diplomats from India after the Indian government said it would revoke their diplomatic immunity, the foreign minister said Thursday, in an escalation of their dispute over the killing of a Sikh separatist in Canada.
The moves come in the wake of Canada’s allegations that India may have been involved in the June killing of Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar in suburban Vancouver. India has accused Canada of harboring separatists and “terrorists”, but dismissed the allegation of its involvement in the killing as “absurd” and took diplomatic steps to express its anger at the allegation.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said Thursday that 41 of Canada’s 62 diplomats in India have been removed, along with their dependents. Joly said exceptions have been made for 21 Canadian diplomats who will remain in India.
“Forty-one Canadian diplomats and their 42 dependents were in danger of being stripped of their immunity on an arbitrary date and this would put their personal safety at risk,” Joly said. “Our diplomats and their families have now left.”
Joly said that removing diplomatic immunity is not only unprecedented but against international law, and said that because of this, Canada would not threaten to do the same to Indian diplomats.
“Unilateral revocation of diplomatic privilege and immunity is contrary to international law and a clear violation of the Geneva Convention on diplomatic relations. Threatening to do so is unreasonable and escalating,” Joly said.
Joly said that India’s decision will affect the level of services to citizens of both countries. She said that Canada is stopping personal services in Chandigarh, Mumbai and Bangalore.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi had previously called for a reduction in Canadian diplomats in India, saying they outnumbered India’s staff in Canada.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last month there were “credible allegations” of Indian involvement in the killing of Nijjar, a 45-year-old Sikh leader who was killed by masked gunmen in June in Surrey, outside Vancouver.
For years, India said Nijjar, a Canadian citizen born in India, had links to terrorism, a charge Nijjar denied.
India also canceled visas for Canadians, and Canada did not retaliate for this. India previously expelled a senior Canadian diplomat after Canada expelled a senior Indian diplomat.
Trudeau previously appeared to try to defuse the diplomatic clash, telling reporters that Canada is “not looking to provoke or escalate.”
India’s latest expulsions have increased tensions between the countries. Trudeau had frosty encounters with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the recent Group of 20 meeting in New Delhi, and a few days later, Canada canceled a trade mission to India planned for the fall.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with India’s foreign minister amid the burning row. A US official said the issue had been raised. US officials acknowledged that the fallout from the allegations could affect relations with India, but were careful not to assign blame for Nijjar’s killing.
Nijjar, a plumber, was also a leader in what remains of a once strong movement to create an independent Sikh homeland, known as Khalistan. A bloody decades-long Sikh insurgency rocked northern India in the 1970s and 1980s, until it was crushed in a government crackdown in which thousands of people were killed, including prominent Sikh leaders.
The Khalistan movement has lost much of its political power but continues to have supporters in the Indian state of Punjab, as well as in the sizable overseas Sikh diaspora. While the active insurgency ended years ago, the Indian government has repeatedly warned that Sikh separatists are trying to make a comeback.
Nelson Wiseman, a political scientist at the University of Toronto, said there would be no point in Canada retaliating for India’s latest move.
“The expulsions of the Canadian diplomats reveal the thin skin of the Indians; it suggests they know they are complicit in the murder of a Canadian in Canada,” said Wiseman. “They are trying to divert attention from their lack of cooperation with Canada in the investigation of the murder.”