NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India on Wednesday urged its citizens in Canada, especially students, to exercise “utmost caution” as ties deteriorate after each nation expelled one of its diplomats. the other in a growing dispute over the murder of a Sikh separatist. leader.
Tension has risen since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday Canada was investigating “credible allegations” about the possible involvement of Indian government agents in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia in June.
“In view of increasing anti-India activities and politically tolerated hate crimes and criminal violence in Canada, all Indian citizens there, and those contemplating travel, are urged to exercise utmost caution,” the ministry said. of Foreign Affairs of India, without providing evidence or details of specific cases. incidents.
Just hours after India’s travel advisory, Canada’s Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc told reporters that Canada is a safe country.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has categorically rejected Canada’s suspicions that Indian agents had links to the murder.
“Given the deteriorating security environment in Canada, Indian students in particular are advised to exercise extreme caution and remain alert,” the ministry added in a statement.
New Delhi’s advisory followed Ottawa’s advisory to Canadian citizens in Indian-ruled Kashmir issued late Tuesday.
“Avoid all travel to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir due to the unpredictable security situation,” the Canadian advisory said, referring to the federal territory where separatists have been fighting Indian rule since 1989, although militant violence has subsided. notably in recent years.
“There is a threat of terrorism, militancy, civil unrest and kidnappings,” the notice said.
India has been the largest source nation for international students in Canada since 2018.
That number rose 47 per cent last year to nearly 320,000, representing about 40 per cent of all foreign students, according to the Canadian Bureau of International Education.
On Wednesday, a private entertainment company, BookMyShow, announced the cancellation of an Indian tour by Canadian singer Shubhneet Singh.
canadian officials so far they have decreased to say why they believe India could be linked to Nijjar’s murder.
US CONCERN ABOUT THE ACCUSATIONS
The United States has expressed “deep concern” about Canada’s allegations, and U.S. Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti said Wednesday that “those responsible must be held accountable.”
“We hope that traditional friends and partners will cooperate to get to the bottom of the matter,” Garcetti was quoted as saying by Indian news agency ANI, in which Reuters has a minority stake.
India’s main opposition Congress party backed the government’s rejection of Canada’s allegations, urging it to take a stand against threats to Indian sovereignty.
“Trudeau’s defense of declared terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar is absolutely disgraceful and shows the extent to which the current Canadian regime is in bed with Khalistani sympathizers,” Abhishek Manu Singhvi, a senior Congress lawmaker, posted on the Twitter platform. social networks X, formerly known as Twitter.
Calistan is the name of an aspiring independent Sikh state whose creation was the target of a bloody Sikh insurgency in the 1980s and 1990s in the northern Indian state of Punjab, during which tens of thousands of people were killed.
As the ruling party at the time, the Congress led the fight against the insurgency and eventually suppressed it.
But it claimed the lives of key Congress leaders, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984, and Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh, killed in a bomb blast by Sikh separatists in 1995.
‘Anti-terror crackdown’ by India
Although there is little support left for the insurgency in India, small groups of Sikhs in Australia, Britain, Canada and the United States support the separatist demand and occasionally organize protests outside Indian embassies.
New Delhi, which remains wary of any resurgence of the insurgency, has long been dissatisfied with Sikh separatist activity in Canada and urged Ottawa to act against anti-Indian elements.
Canada has the largest population of Sikhs outside the Indian state of Punjab, with around 770,000 people reporting Sikhism as their religion in the 2021 census.
Some Indian analysts say Ottawa is not slowing down Sikh protesters as they are a politically influential group.
India’s counterterrorism agency, the National Investigation Agency (NIA), said on Wednesday it was intensifying a “crackdown against Khalistani terrorists operating in India.”
An NIA statement said the agency announced a cash reward of Rs 1 million ($12,045) each for information leading to the arrest of Harwinder Singh Sandhu and Lakhbir Singh Sandhu “for promoting terrorist activities of Babbar Khalsa International ( BKI) in India”, one of the main Sikh separatist groups.
A cash reward of Rs 500,000 each has also been announced for information on three associates, an NIA statement said, adding that the five were charged with militant attacks and raising funds for the BKI, “a banned terrorist group.” “.
He said they had also recruited new members for BKI and established a network of agents in various countries to “promote their terrorist activities in different parts of India”.
(1 dollar = 83.0203 Indian rupees)
Reporting by YP Rajesh and Rupam Jain; Editing by Clarence Fernández, Mark Heinrich and Jonathan Oatis
Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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