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Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner Mike Duheme takes part in a press conference about India-linked criminal activity occurring in Canada, in Ottawa, Ontario, October 14, 2024.

REUTERS/Blair Gable

India and Canada expel diplomats in deepening criminal scandal

Canadian authorities declared India’s High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma a persona non grata note on Monday, expelling him and five other diplomats from their posts over allegations they were part of a criminal network harassing Canadian Sikhs. New Delhi retaliated by expelling six Canadian diplomats, including Ottawa’s second-in-command in the subcontinent, Stewart Wheeler.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Congress Parliamentary Party Chairperson Sonia Gandhi

(ANI Photo/Rahul Singh)

Memo shows Modi government planned ‘crackdown’

The Indian government allegedly directed its officials to launch a “sophisticated crackdown scheme” on overseas Sikh activists just two months before the assassination of a Sikh Canadian activist whose death Canada has blamed on India, according to a memo obtained by The Intercept.
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Annie Gugliotta

Biden wants to take away Modi’s license to kill

Before Narendra Modi became prime minister, he said India should be quicker to kill terrorists outside its borders – carrying out extrajudicial assassinations on foreign soil, giving his spies the license to kill, James Bond-style.

An indictment unsealed in New York on Wednesday suggests that Modi did do that, and then angrily denied responsibility for an assassination in Canada.

Modi is popular enough in India that this should not dent his popularity or threaten his reelection bid next spring, but the news raises challenges for him internationally, not least with Canada, whose leader has been vindicated.

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India-Canada: Trudeau's "perverse politics" threatens relations, says Samir Saran
India-Canada: Trudeau's "perverse politics" threatens relations, says Samir Saran | GZERO World

India-Canada: Trudeau's "perverse politics" threatens relations, says Samir Saran

India-Canada relations have hit a crisis point following Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s bombshell allegation in September that India was responsible for the murder of a Sikh leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in British Columbia last June. The fallout was swift: India’s foreign ministry dismissed the accusation as “absurd,” both countries expelled top diplomats, and tensions have escalated significantly.

“Friends don’t do this in public,” Samir Saran, President of the Observer Research Foundation think tank tells Ian Bremmer on GZERO World, “This was something that should have always been in the private mode.”

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Can the India-Canada relationship be fixed after a suspicious murder?
Can the India-Canada relationship be repaired after disputed murder? | GZERO World with Ian Bremmer

Can the India-Canada relationship be fixed after a suspicious murder?

In September, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau leveled a bombshell accusation in Canada’s House of Commons: He announced there were “credible allegations” India was involved in the killing of a Sikh separatist leader and Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in British Columbia in June.

New Delhi immediately dismissed the claims as “absurd” and demanded any evidence be released publicly, which Canada has yet to do. But the diplomatic fallout was swift: Canada expelled the head of India’s security service in Canada, and New Delhi demanded dozens of Canadian diplomats leave India.

On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer speaks with Samir Saran, President of the Observer Research Foundation, a top Indian think tank, to discuss the fallout from the shocking allegations, the history of the Khalistan separatist movement within Canada, and where the two countries go from here, given their strong diasporic and economic links.

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Podcast: Death and diplomacy: A look at India-Canada tensions with Samir Saran

Transcript

Listen: The GZERO World Podcast takes a look at an international murder mystery that dominated headlines in September: Canada's allegation that India was involved in the assassination of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia in June. New Delhi has dismissed the accusation as “absurd” and demanded any evidence be released publicly, which Canada has yet to do. But the diplomatic fallout has been swift: Canada expelled the head of India’s security service in Canada, and New Delhi demanded dozens of Canadian diplomats leave India.

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Ian Explains: Why India-Canada relations are tense over a mysterious murder
Ian Explains: Why India-Canada relations are tense over a mysterious murder | GZERO World

Ian Explains: Why India-Canada relations are tense over a mysterious murder

On June 18th  in a Vancouver suburb, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh leader and Canadian citizen, pulled his grey pickup truck out of a parking space at his local temple. In security video viewed by The New York Times and The Washington Post—but not yet released to the public—a white sedan can be seen cutting off Nijjar’s truck as two men in hooded sweatshirts emerge from a covered area and fire a reported 50 bullets into the pickup truck’s driver’s seat, killing Nijjar instantly.  

And then, weeks later, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a bombshell accusation on the floor of Canada’s parliament.  “Over the past number of weeks," Trudeau announced, "Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible accusations of a potential leak between agencies of the government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty.” 

Just to give you a sense of how serious this announcement was, imagine if the journalist Jamal Khashoggi had been an American citizen, and the Saudis had killed him in New York, Ian Bremmer explains on GZERO World.

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India-Canada standoff heats up while US seeks a compromise
India-Canada standoff heats up while US seeks a compromise | Quick Take | GZERO Media

India-Canada standoff heats up while US seeks a compromise

Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here. And a Quick Take to kick off your week.

India and Canada. Not the two countries that you expected to be getting into a big public fight. But that is exactly where we are. And the Americans are uncomfortable. And sort of in the middle of it, though I'm about clearly on Canada's side. Give you a little background.

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