One of the great anecdotes that occurred at the end of September 10 G-20 summit in New Delhi was that the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, along with his entire delegation, was stuck in India for more than 48 hours because his Airbus A310 plane had broken down. In the following days, that incident was the talk among Indian politicians, who commented that it had not been a comfortable stay for Trudeau.
The hosts did not entertain the Canadian like the rest of the leaders. In the circles of the international delegations they talked about how the Indians had more than one ugly diplomatic gesture due to the tensions between Ottawa and Delhi for the activities in Canada of the Sikh separatist group, originally from the Indian region of Punjab. This week, those tensions have escalated directly into an unprecedented diplomatic conflict between both countries.
On June 18, a Sikh separatist leader named Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was one of Canada’s most vocal activists, was shot dead inside his vehicle in the Canadian city of Surrey. This Monday afternoon, Trudeau, speaking in the House of Commons, said that Canadian authorities were investigating “credible allegations of a potential link” between agents of the Indian Government and the murder of the activist. The Prime Minister also revealed that, during the trip to Delhi for the G-20 summit, he personally conveyed the “deep concerns” on this matter to his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi.
“Any involvement of a foreign government in the murder of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty. It is contrary to the fundamental rules by which free, open and democratic societies are conducted,” said Trudeau, also calling for to the Modi Government cooperate with them to “get to the bottom of this matter.
After the leader’s appearance, it was the Canadian Foreign Minister, Melanie Joly, who announced that her Government had expelled an Indian diplomat (the highest-ranking official of the Indian intelligence agency’s mission in Ottawa) for the murder of the activist.