According to The Financial Times, โIndia has instructed Canada to withdraw about 40 diplomats by October 10 in response to Ottawaโs suspicions that New Delhi was involved in the murderous act of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soilโ.
According to a person with firsthand knowledge of the situation, India has threatened to revoke the diplomatic immunity of any Canadian diplomat who remains in the country beyond October 10.
According to a source, โCanada has 62 ambassadors in India, but New Delhi has urged them to decrease the manpower at their high commission to 41โ.
โDeclaring more Canadian diplomats personae non gratae wouldnโt help the situation and would make reducing the emotions associated with this disagreement more difficult,โ Peter Boehm, chair of the Canadian Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, was quoted by the newspaper as saying.
According to Boehm, โPrime Minister Justin Trudeau does not plan to back down, and India sees Canada as an โeasy mark.โ He claimed that New Delhi was aware of Ottawaโs limited ability to retaliate because the latter is governed by a minority administration.โ
Trudeau, the Liberal Partyโs leader, shares power with Indian-origin and Canadian Sikh leader Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP).
โIndia understands that our capacity to retaliate is limited, that we have a minority government, and that the resulting politics are at work.โ โOf course, India has an election on the horizon,โ Boehms was cited as saying in a report.
Previously, India stated that it desired an equal number of diplomats stationed in both India and Canada. In comparison to India, Canada has several dozen diplomats stationed at its high commission in Delhi.
An extraordinary diplomatic crisis erupted between India and Canada after Trudeau announced on September 18 that Canadian security agencies were actively investigating โcredible allegations of a potential linkโ between Indian government agents and Nijjarโs death.
India, which branded Nijjar as a terrorist in 2020, has categorically denied Canadaโs claims, calling them โabsurdโ and โmotivated.โ In June, Nijjar, the leader of the proscribed Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF), was assassinated outside a gurdwara in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada.
In retaliation for Ottawaโs removal of an Indian official over the matter, India expelled a Canadian diplomat. Visa services for Canadians have also been suspended in New Delhi.
On September 26, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, in a veiled jab at Canada, urged UN member states not to let โpolitical convenienceโ dictate responses to terrorism, extremism, and bloodshed. He made the remarks while speaking during the United Nations General Assemblyโs 78th session in New York.