The international ministry in New Delhi issued an up to date journey advisory, urging its nationals and particularly these learning within the North American nation to be cautious due to “rising anti-India actions and politically condoned hate crimes”.
In Ottawa, Canadian Public Security Minister Dominic LeBlanc dismissed the Indian warning. “Canada is a secure nation,” he informed reporters.
Ottawa and New Delhi, two key strategic companions on safety and commerce, are locked in a diplomatic tussle after Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, alleged that India was linked to the assassination of Sikh independence advocate on its soil in June.
Canada has but to supply any proof of Indian involvement within the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a 45-year-old Sikh chief killed by masked gunmen in Surrey, outdoors Vancouver.
For years, India has mentioned Nijjar, a Canadian citizen born in India, has hyperlinks to terrorism, an allegation he denied. Nijjar was working to organise an unofficial Sikh diaspora referendum on independence from India on the time of his killing.
Who was the Sikh activist whose killing has divided Canada and India?
Who was the Sikh activist whose killing has divided Canada and India?
Indian authorities designated Nijjar a terrorist in 2020 and accused him of supporting calls for for an unbiased Sikh homeland, often called Khalistan, that began as an insurgency in India’s Punjab state in Seventies and Nineteen Eighties and was crushed in an Indian authorities crackdown.
The motion has since misplaced a lot of its political energy however nonetheless has supporters in Punjab, the place Sikhs are in a majority, in addition to among the many sizeable abroad Sikh diaspora.
India’s international ministry additionally mentioned Trudeau’s allegations “search to shift the main target from Khalistani terrorists and extremists, who’ve been supplied shelter in Canada and proceed to threaten India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
The ministry recurrently points journey advisories. In September final yr, it requested Indian residents to stay cautious whereas travelling in Canada due to “sharp improve in incidents of hate crimes, sectarian violence and anti-India actions” there.
![A man checks his phone as he sits outside an Air Canada regional office in New Delhi on Wednesday. Photo: AFP](https://i0.wp.com/cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2023/09/21/8d5d12b3-ad32-4e03-a71a-4e77b1360e33_83112958.jpg?ssl=1)
The fashionable Sikh independence motion reaches again to the Nineteen Forties however ultimately morphed into the Seventies and Nineteen Eighties insurgency. In 1984, then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered a raid to seize armed separatists taking refuge in Sikhism’s holiest shrine.
The raid killed tons of of individuals, and two of Gandhi’s Sikh bodyguards assassinated her quickly after. In response, anti-Sikh riots befell throughout India wherein members of the minority have been dragged out of their properties and killed.
And although the insurgency was suppressed way back, the federal government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has warned repeatedly that Sikh separatists have been making an attempt to make a comeback.
Modi’s authorities has been asking a number of nations – together with Canada, Australia and the UK – to take authorized motion towards Sikh separatists.
Frosty ties immediate Canada to name off commerce mission to India
Frosty ties immediate Canada to name off commerce mission to India
India has additionally for years accused Canada of giving free rein to Sikh separatists, together with Nijjar.
The duelling expulsions of diplomats have escalated tensions – Trudeau had frosty encounters with Modi throughout this month’s Group of 20 assembly in New Delhi, and some days later Canada cancelled a commerce mission to India deliberate for the autumn.
Canada stays a high research vacation spot for Indian college students. In 2022, the nation had practically 300,000 Indians college students pursuing increased training there.
Further reporting by Agence France-Presse