Canada announced the withdrawal of 41 diplomats from India on Thursday, following a tense dispute over the assassination of a Sikh separatist on Canadian soil.
According to Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly, New Delhi planned to suspend diplomatic immunity for all but 21 of Canada’s diplomats and their families by Friday, forcing Ottawa to withdraw the others.
“We have facilitated their safe departure from India,” Joly added. “This means that our diplomats and their families have now left.”
Relations between India and Canada have deteriorated since Ottawa openly connected Indian intelligence to the June assassination of Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Vancouver.
Nijjar argued for the creation of a distinct Sikh state within India.
Canada has asked India to help with the inquiry, but New Delhi has denied the allegations and taken countermeasures such as suspending visa services for Canadians.
Over the scandal, Ottawa also expelled an Indian diplomat.
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India’s External Affairs Minister, stated last month in New York that his country would be open to investigate any proof offered by Canada.
“We have actually been badgering the Canadians. We’ve given them loads of information about organized crime leadership which operates out of Canada,” Jaishankar said, referring to Sikh separatists.
“We have a situation where actually our diplomats are threatened, our consulates have been attacked and often comments are made (that are) interference in our politics,” he said.
Canada is home to approximately 770,000 Sikhs, or about 2% of the country’s population, with a vocal group advocating for the creation of an independent state of Khalistan.
Last month, hundreds of Sikh demonstrators demonstrated outside Indian diplomatic offices in Canada, burning flags and trampling on images of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“We are not safe back home in Punjab, we are not safe in Canada,” said Joe Hotha, a member of the Sikh community in Toronto.
The Sikh separatist movement is largely finished within India where security forces used deadly force to put down an insurgency in the 1980s.