Canada welcomes criminals, India says
Minister says parties pander to Sikh separatists
OTTAWA • India’s Foreign Affairs Minister accused Canada of welcoming criminals from his country in response to the RCMP’S recent arrests in a homicide that has roiled tensions between the two countries.
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar also called Ottawa the No. 1 driver of what he described as a violent movement of Sikhs trying to carve their own country out of India.
“It’s not so much a problem in the U.S.; our biggest problem right now is in Canada,” Jaishankar said during remarks at a weekend forum for intellectuals in India.
RCMP charged three Indian nationals on Friday in the death of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was shot dead last June as he left a temple in Surrey, B.C.
The three suspects are scheduled to appear in court in Surrey, B.C., on Tuesday to face charges of first-degree murder and conspiracy to murder.
The victim, Nijjar, was a fervent activist for the creation of a Sikh homeland called Khalistan, and his death sparked a wave of protests and rallies against Indian diplomats in Canada.
Those protests reached particular intensity after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused New Delhi last September of playing a role in the homicide.
Jaishankar said the governing Liberals and other, unspecified political parties “pander” to Sikh separatists for votes, and “have given these kinds of extremism, separatism, advocates of violence a certain legitimacy in the name of free speech.”
Jaishankar also reiterated his ministry’s insistence that Ottawa is allowing criminal elements to operate in Canada and affiliate with Sikh separatists, in response to last week’s arrests.
“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.
“These are wanted criminals from India; you have given them visas … and yet you allow them to live there.”
Ottawa has repeatedly insisted India has not proven that people it accuses of terrorism have actually done anything that meets the threshold under Canada’s Criminal Code.