India suspends visa services in Canada amid row over killing

By ASHOK SHARMA and KRUTIKA PATHI

Associated Press

Sept. 21, 2023 Updated 3:01 PM PT

NEW DELHI — India told Canada to reduce its diplomatic staff and stopped issuing visas to its citizens Thursday as a rift widened between the once-close allies over Ottawa’s allegation that New Delhi may have been involved in the killing of a Canadian citizen.

Ties between the two countries, strategic partners on security and trade, have plunged to their lowest point in years after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this week said there were “credible allegations” of Indian involvement in the assassination of a Sikh separatist activist in June in a Vancouver suburb.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a 45-year-old Canadian citizen who had been wanted by India for years, was gunned down in June outside the temple he led in Surrey. Nijjar, a plumber, was born in India but became a Canadian citizen in 2007.

Speaking on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, Trudeau acknowledged the complicated diplomatic situation he faced.

“There is no question that India is a country of growing importance and a country that we need to continue to work with,” he said. “We are not looking to provoke or cause problems, but we are unequivocal around the importance of the rule of law and unequivocal about the importance of protecting Canadians.”

The bombshell allegation from Trudeau on Monday set off a diplomatic tit for tat as both countries expelled a diplomat each from their consulates. India called the allegations absurd.

Canada has yet to provide evidence to back Trudeau’s allegations, and Canada’s United Nations ambassador, Bob Rae, indicated Thursday that it may not come very soon. “This is very early days,” Rae told reporters at the U.N., insisting that while facts will emerge, they must “come out in the course of the pursuit of justice.”

“That’s what we call the rule of law in Canada,” he said.

On Thursday, the company that processes Indian visas in Canada announced that visa services had been suspended until further notice. The BLS Indian Visa Application Center gave no further details.

The suspension means that Canadians who don’t already have a visa will not be able to travel to India until services resume. Canadians are among the top travelers to India. In 2021, 80,000 Canadian tourists visited the country, according to data from India’s Bureau of Immigration.

Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi blamed the visa suspension, which includes visas issued in third countries, on safety issues.

“Security threats being faced by our high commission and consulates in Canada have disrupted their normal functioning. Accordingly, they are temporarily unable to process visa applications. We will be reviewing the situation on a regular basis,” Bagchi told reporters.

He gave no details on the alleged threats.

The announcement quickly rippled across Canada, especially among people with ties to India.

Sukhwinder Dhillon, a 56-year-old grocery store owner in Montreal, said he had a trip planned to his birthplace in India to see family and sort out his deceased father’s estate. Dhillon, who came to Canada in 1998, said he makes the trip back every two or three years, and he has lost two people in his immediate family since he was last home.

“My father passed, and my brother passed,” Dhillon said. “I want to go now. ... Now I don’t know when we’ll go.”

Bagchi also called for a reduction in the number of Canadian diplomats in India, saying it exceeded India’s staffing in Canada.

“We have informed the Canadian government that there should be parity in strength and rank equivalence in our mutual diplomatic presence,” Bagchi said.

The Canadian High Commission in New Delhi said in a statement Thursday that all of its consulates in India were open and continuing to serve clients. It said some of its diplomats had received threats on social media, prompting it to assess its “staff complement in India.” It added that Canada expected India to provide security for its diplomats and consular officers there.

On Wednesday, India warned its citizens to be careful when traveling to Canada because of “growing anti-India activities and politically condoned hate crimes.”

India’s security and intelligence branches have long been active in South Asia and are suspected in a number of killings in Pakistan. But arranging the killing of a Canadian citizen in Canada, home to nearly 2 million people of Indian descent, would be unprecedented.

Bagchi accused Canada of providing a haven for terrorists. He said India has regularly provided it with specific evidence of criminal activities by people based on its soil, but the information has not been acted upon.

India has criticized Canada for years over giving free rein to Sikh separatists, including Nijjar. New Delhi had accused him of having links to terrorism, which he had denied.

Nijjar was a local leader in what remains of a once-strong movement to create an independent Sikh homeland, known as Khalistan. A bloody decadelong Sikh insurgency shook north 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.

While the active insurgency ended decades ago, the Indian government has warned that Sikh separatists were trying to stage a comeback and pressed countries such as Canada, where Sikhs make up more than 2% of the population, to do more in stopping them.

At the time of his killing, Nijjar was working to organize an unofficial Sikh diaspora referendum on independence from India.

New Delhi’s anxieties about Sikh separatist groups in Canada have long been a strain on the relationship, but the two have maintained strong defense and trade ties, and share strategic interests over China’s global ambitions.

In March, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government summoned the Canadian high commissioner in New Delhi, the top diplomat in the country, to complain about Sikh independence protests in Canada.

But signs of a broader diplomatic rift emerged at the summit of the Group of 20 leading world economies, hosted by India this month. Trudeau had frosty encounters with Modi during the summit, and a few days later Canada canceled a trade mission to India planned for the fall.

On Wednesday, India’s National Investigation Agency said it has intensified its crackdown on Sikh insurgents operating in India.

It announced rewards of up to $12,000 for information leading to the arrest of five insurgents, one of whom is believed to be based in neighboring Pakistan.

The agency accused them of extorting money from businesses for a banned Sikh organization, Babbar Khalsa International, and of targeted killings in India. “They also have established a network of operatives in various countries to further their terrorist activities in India,” it said in a statement, without naming any country.

India accuses Pakistan of supporting insurgencies in Kashmir and Punjab, an allegation that Islamabad denies.