India Canada row live updates | Canada’s Defence Minister describes relationship with India ‘important’

Canada has updated travel advisory for its citizens in India asking them to “stay vigilant and exercise caution” in the context of recent developments as there are calls for protests and some “negative sentiment” towards Canada on social media.

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Delhi traders’ body CTI on Monday urged the Central government to ban import of lentil (masur) from Canada, over Ottawa’s allegations relating to the killing of a Khalistani separatist on Canadian soil.

In a letter to Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, the Chamber of Trade and Industry (CTI) said that there was a need to exert economic pressure on Canada.

Chairman of CTI, Brijesh Goyal, said that the development has sent ripples through the business world. Indian traders have demanded that India should ban import of lentils from Canada, which is a major supplier.

“Canada is becoming a stronghold of Khalistanis and their anti-India sentiment was displayed by protests at the Indian embassy. However, Trudeau is making politically motivated statements in view of upcoming elections in Canada,” he said.

- PTI

A Canadian Sikh group has called on its members to protest outside the Indian diplomatic missions of main Canadian cities on September 25, a week after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau raised the prospect of New Delhi’s involvement in the murder of a Sikh separatist leader in British Columbia.

Jatinder Singh Grewal, a director for Sikh for Justice in Canada, told Reuters on Sunday that his organisation will lead the demonstrations outside the Indian embassies and consulates in Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver to increase public awareness about Nijjar’s killing.

“We are asking Canada to expel the India Ambassador,” Mr. Grewal said. Representatives for India’s diplomatic missions in Ottawa and Toronto were not immediately available for comment.

The Toronto Police Department said it was aware of the planned demonstrations on Monday but declined to disclose details of the security preparations or potential response to any violent situations that may arise during the protest.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar was a prominent member of a movement to create an independent Sikh homeland known as Khalistan and was organising an unofficial referendum among the Sikh diaspora with the organisation Sikhs For Justice.

He also owned a plumbing business and served as president of a Sikh temple or gurdwara in suburban Vancouver, where banners hung with his face promoting the referendum on September 19.

Following his death, the World Sikh Organisation of Canada called Nijjar an outspoken supporter of Khalistan who “often led peaceful protests against the violation of human rights actively taking place in India and in support of Khalistan”.

Nijjar was a wanted man in India, which has for years seen Sikh separatists abroad as a security threat.

Sikhs make up just 2% of India’s 1.4 billion people but they are a majority in Punjab, a State of 30 million where their religion was born 500 years ago. Outside of Punjab, the greatest number of Sikhs live in Canada, the site of many protests that have irked India.

In the village of Bharsinghpura, there are few memories of Nijjar, but his uncle, Himmat Singh Nijjar, 79, said locals “think it was very brave of Trudeau” to accuse Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government of potential involvement in the killing.

“For the sake of one ordinary person, he did not need to take such a huge risk on his government,” the uncle told Reuters, sitting on a wooden bench by a tractor in his farmhouse, surrounded by lush paddy fields and banana trees.

Still, though, the elder Nijjar said he is worried about deteriorating diplomatic relations with Canada and declining economic prospects in Punjab.

The once-prosperous breadbasket of India, Punjab has been overtaken by States that focussed on manufacturing, services and technology in the last two decades.

“Now every family wants to send its sons and daughters to Canada as farming here is not lucrative, said the elder Nijjar.

India is the largest source for international students in Canada, their numbers jumping 47% last year to 320,000. — Reuters

Foreign affairs expert Robinder Sachdev has said Canada’s allegations against India may be based on intelligence collected by America or England on their own or it may be that Canada asked them to find out some information.

Mr. Sachdev was referring to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s allegations that the Indian government was behind the fatal shooting of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada.

Nijjar, who was wanted in India, was gunned down outside a Gurdwara, in a parking area in Canada’s Surrey, British Columbia on June 18. ANI

A bitter row between India and Canada over the murder of a Sikh separatist is being felt in Punjab, where some Sikhs fear both a backlash from India’s Hindu-nationalist government and a threat to their prospects for a better life in North America.

“We now fear whether Canada will give student visas or if the Indian government will create some hurdles,” said undergraduate Gursimran Singh, 19, who wants to go to Canada.

He was speaking at the holiest of Sikh shrines, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, where many students go to pray for, or give thanks for, for student visas. The temple became a flashpoint for Hindu-Sikh tension when then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi allowed it to be stormed in 1984 to flush out Sikh separatists, angering Sikhs around the world. Her Sikh bodyguards assassinated her soon afterward.

Ties between Sikh groups in Punjab and Prime Minister Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government have been strained since Sikh farmers led year-long protests against farm deregulation in 2020 and blocked the capital, forcing Modi to withdraw the measure in a rare political defeat for the strongman.

Modi’s government has created “an atmosphere of fear”, especially for young people, said Sandeep Singh, 31, from Nijjar’s village. “If we are doing a protest, parents wouldn’t like their child to participate because they are afraid their children can meet the same fate” as Nijjar in Canada, he said. — Reuters

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s startling allegation, tying the killing of Canadian Khalistani leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June, to “agents of the Government of India”, marks a new low in their unravelling ties. Mr. Trudeau’s accusation — he said evidence had been shared with India and also raised in a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi last weekend — has set off a chain of events. After Canada expelled a senior Indian diplomat, India summoned the Canadian High Commissioner and expelled Canada’s Station chief for intelligence on Tuesday. Read more here.