India-Canada relations have been tense since 2023 when Trudeau said Canada had credible evidence to link Indian agents to the assassination of Sikh leader

OTTAWA, OCT 14: Canada has expelled six Indian diplomats after a police investigation into “criminal activity” uncovered a “campaign of violence” against dissidents.

A US newspaper reported on Monday that the diplomats had been expelled, and it in a tit-for-tat move, the Indian foreign ministry said that New Delhi had expelled six Canadian diplomats, giving them until Saturday to leave the country.

That came hours after India said it was withdrawing its top envoy to Ottawa and other diplomats because the Canadian government is investigating them as “persons of interest” in an investigation.

India-Canada relations have been tense since September 2023 when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada had credible evidence to link Indian agents to the assassination of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil earlier that year.

Nijjar supported a Sikh homeland in the form of an independent Khalistani state and was designated by India as a “terrorist” in July 2020.

India has repeatedly denied the allegation that its agents killed him, challenging Canada to share evidence to back its claim.

In a press conference, the commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Michael Duheme, said that the police had learned “a significant amount of information on the breadth and depth of criminal activity orchestrated by agents of the government of India, and consequential threats to the safety and security of Canadians and individuals living in Canada”.