OTTAWA: Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland has said that the murder of a Canadian was entirely unacceptable and strongly defended Parliament’s ‘moment of silence’ tribute to pro-Khalistan leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar. He was shot dead in the front of a Sikh temple in Surrey in Canada on June 18, 2023.
Nijjar was associated with the Khalistan movement, a movement that sprung up among the Sikhs in India. Khalistan is the proposed name for a Sikh nation envisioned by some Sikh leaders, incorporating the state of Punjab in India.
In September 2023, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated that his country was investigating the possibility that Indian government was involved in Nijjar’s killing.
The assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar also put a strain on the ties between the two sides as the trade talks between the two countries have been in deep freeze since PM Trudeau’s bombshell allegations against India. However, Canada is not the only nation where the overseas actions of Indian security agencies are under strict scrutiny.
The Czech Republic has also extradited Indian citizen Nikhil Gupta to the United States, where prosecutors have alleged him of involvement in an unsuccessful murder-for-hire plot to assassinate another Sikh leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.
Gupta, who was arrested last year in June by Czech officials while travelling from India to Prague, reached the United States on June 14. Last month, Washington said that India should take more steps to ensure accountability in the plots in the US.
