Ottawa: Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Jolie on Friday told the last Indian diplomats in the country that Canada will not tolerate any further criminal activity on its soil.
The warning comes after six Indian diplomats were expelled earlier this week after the Canadian National Police Force said there was sufficient evidence of murder and extortion by agents in Canada acting on orders from New Delhi.
The Indian High Commissioner was among those expelled from Canada after he was identified as a person of interest in the June 18, 2023, assassination of Canadian Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nigar in British Columbia.
India strongly denied these accusations and ordered six Canadian diplomats to leave the country.
But Jolie said evidence shows New Delhi used criminals in Canada to commit violence, including targeting Sikh separatists who want to establish a Sikh state in India.
“There was definitely a threat, and that’s exactly why the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) decided to take the extraordinary measure of publicizing the fact that Canadians were being intimidated, victims of extortion, or even (received) death threats because agents and diplomats from… Montreal, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation said, India is linked to these criminal acts.
“We have never seen this in our history. This level of cross-border repression cannot happen on Canadian soil.