Canada-India tensions: What’s happened and how did we get here?

A diplomatic row between Canada and India is back in the spotlight amid mounting foreign interference concerns and continued investigations of the 2023 killing of a Sikh separatist leader in British Columbia.

In tit-for-tat moves, both countries expelled each others’ diplomats on Monday. Ottawa said it was expelling six Indian diplomats and consular officials “in relation to a targeted campaign against Canadian citizens by agents linked to the government of India.”

The government acted “to disrupt the chain of operations that go from Indian diplomats here in Canada to criminal organizations, to direct violent impacts on Canadians right across this country,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.

Global News has learned agents working out of India’s high commission in Ottawa and consulates in Vancouver and Toronto were behind dozens of violent crimes across Canada that targeted opponents of the Narendra Modi government.

Although on paper they held diplomatic and consular positions, the Indian agents played key roles in a wave of shootings, killings, threats, arsons and extortions in Canada, according to senior sources familiar with the matter.

7:47 India ‘decided not to cooperate’ as New Delhi, Ottawa expels 6 diplomats each: Trudeau

The victims were mostly supporters of the Khalistan movement, which seeks independence for India’s Sikh-majority Punjab region. But others were simply rivals of the government, the sources said.

The revelations come as Canadian law enforcement continues to probe the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C., where the killers were allegedly tied to Indian government agents.

Trudeau on Monday reiterated his call to New Delhi to co-operate with Ottawa in the ongoing investigation on criminal activity allegedly linked to the Indian government.

“We will never tolerate the involvement of a foreign government in threatening and killing Canadian citizens on Canadian soil — a deeply unacceptable violation of Canada’s sovereignty and of international law,” Trudeau said in a statement.

India has long denied any involvement in Nijjar’s killing and accused Trudeau on Monday of pursuing a “political agenda.”

“The Government of India strongly rejects these preposterous imputations and ascribes them to the political agenda of the Trudeau Government that is centered around vote bank politics, “ India’s ministry of external affairs said in a statement.

As tensions between the two countries escalate, here is what has happened and how we got here:

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which is investigating Nijjar’s killing, said on Monday that it has significant amount of information on criminal activity allegedly orchestrated by agents of the Indian government.

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The investigations have revealed that Indian diplomats and consular officials based in Canada are leveraging their official position to engage in “clandestine activities,” the RCMP said.

The evidence points to “violent extremism” in both countries, links tying Indian government agents to homicides and violent acts, use of organized crime targeting the South Asian community in Canada, as well as interference in democratic processes, according to the RCMP.

The Global Affairs Canada expulsion covered six Indian diplomats and consular officials.

Indian High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma allegedly oversaw the operation. Another Ottawa-based diplomat, as well as two consular officials in Toronto and another two in Vancouver, were allegedly involved.

In a retaliatory move, India expelled six Canadian diplomats, asking them to leave by Saturday, Oct. 19, and withdrew its own envoy who was named in the RCMP probe from Canada.

9:07 How did RCMP’s allegations against India lead to diplomats being expelled?

Relations between India and Canada have soured since 2023 when Trudeau said Canadian intelligence agencies had credible evidence linking agents of the Indian government to the assassination of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Nijjar was murdered on June 18, 2023, when two gunmen opened fire on his pickup truck when he was leaving Surrey’s Guru Nanak Sikh Temple, where he was president.

Four Indian nationals — Karan Brar, Amandeep Singh, Kamalpreet Singh and Karanpreet Singh — have so far been charged with murder and conspiracy in Nijjar’s killing.

Nijjar, 45, was a well-known activist who fled India and came to Canada in 1997.

0:43 Activist who took over Khalistan campaign from Hardeep Singh Nijjar warned that his life is at risk

He was a Canadian citizen, a plumber and a prominent leader of the Khalistan movement, which seeks independence for India’s Sikh-majority Punjab state.

The government of Modi had long accused Nijjar of leading what it calls a terrorist group behind attacks in India, although no credible evidence was ever produced.

India had repeatedly pressed Canada for his arrest over the years.

Three months after his killing, Trudeau went public with allegations that investigators had found credible evidence that Indian government agents may have been involved. India has denied the accusation.

The Khalistan movement is considered a security threat by the Indian government.

The movement dates back to the conflicts over India and Pakistan’s independence in 1947. Sikh separatists pushed for a homeland in negotiations preceding the partition of India’s Punjab region between the two new countries.

The separatists said the homeland would be called Khalistan, meaning “the land of the pure,” and that it should be created out of Punjab.

2:39 Complicated connections, Sikh separatism in B.C.

The Khalistan movement eventually became a bloody armed insurgency that shook India in the 1970s and 1980s. It was centered in the northern Punjab state, where Sikhs are the majority, though they make up about 1.7 per cent of India’s overall population.

The insurgency lasted more than a decade and was suppressed by an Indian government crackdown in which thousands of people were killed, including prominent Sikh leaders.

There is no active insurgency in Punjab today, but the Khalistan movement has supporters in the state as well as in the Sikh diaspora outside of India.

The movement has backing among sections of the Sikh diaspora in Canada, which has the largest population of Sikhs outside Punjab, and in Britain, Australia and the U.S.

Canada had asked India to waive diplomatic and consular immunities for the individuals who have now been expelled, so they could be interviewed by the RCMP.

But according to Ottawa, India has refused to co-operate.

The mounting tensions come as a federal foreign interference inquiry is continuing to investigate allegations of meddling by countries like India and China in the 2019 and 2021 elections, and in Canadian society more broadly.

Both the Foreign Interference Commission and the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) have ranked India as the second most serious foreign interference threat to Canada, behind only China.

2:09 Is the government of India behind a global campaign against Sikh separatism?

— with files from Global News’ Stewart Bell, Mercedes Stephenson, Reuters and The Associated Press