India’s Foreign Affairs Minister accused Ottawa of welcoming in criminals from India in the wake of the RCMP arresting three Indian nationals believed to be involved in the murder of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar also called Canada the primary driver of what he described to be a violent movement of Sikhs seeking to carve their own country within India.
Sikh separatists refer to this desired state as Khalistan.
“It’s not so much a problem in the U.S.; our biggest problem right now is in Canada,” said Jaishankar at a forum for intellectuals in Bhubaneswar, India on Saturday.
The day before, RCMP charged three men in connection with the murder of Nijjar, who was assassinated outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, B.C. last June.
Nijjar was an outspoken Khalistani activist and his murder launched a major diplomatic fallout between Canada and India.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused New Delhi of orchestrating Nijjar’s assassination in the House of Commons last September, further escalating tensions between the two nations.
Domestic protests against the Indian government were spurred on by the alleged assassination as well as investigations into murders of Sikh activists involving the U.S. authorities and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Jaishankar was asked during Saturday’s forum if countries like Canada and the U.S. should be allowed to continue partnering with India while also allowing people to support the Sikh separatist movement, a stance the Indian government has deemed to be unconstitutional.
He responded by saying that the federal Liberals and other unspecified political parties “pander” to Sikh separatists for votes and have granted “these kinds of extremism, separatism, advocates of violence a certain legitimacy in the name of free speech.”
A protest against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government last year included posters calling for people to “kill India” and offering financial rewards for information on the home addresses of Indian officials.
Jaishankar said he addressed these concerns with Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly, according to CTV News.
“I tell the foreign minister (Joly) saying, ‘Suppose it happened to you. if it was your diplomat, your embassy, your flag, how would you react?’ So, we have to keep our position strong,” said Jaishankar .
“Somebody may have been arrested; the police may have done some investigation. But the fact is (a) number of gangland people, (a) number of people with organized crime links from Punjab, have been made welcome in Canada,” he said, referencing the Indian region the Khalistan movement wants to take over.
The Trudeau government has insisted that India has not provided any evidence of their claims that Sikh separatists are involved in terrorism that would meet the threshold necessary to press charges under Canada’s criminal code.
“These are wanted criminals from India; you have given them visas and yet you allow them to live there,” Jaishankar added. “It’s no longer a world which runs as a one-way street. There will be a reaction; others will take steps or counter it.”
