Amid deteriorating relations with India, the Canada Foreign Minister Melanie Joly warned Indian diplomats still in the country to respect Canadian law. She said the government will not tolerate any diplomats that are in contravention of the Vienna Convention.
Her comments come after the RCMP, in a public statement, tied the Indian government to violent crimes in Canada. Commissioner Mike Duheme accused India’s government, its agents and diplomats of links to widespread criminal activity in Canada, including extortion, coercion, and killings.
He highlighted that they have more than a dozen credible and imminent threats to members of the South Asian community, particularly Sikh members of the pro-Khalistan movement.
Joly told a press conference in Montreal that the threats are real. She said that’s why the RCMP decided to take the extraordinary measure of making public that Canadians were intimidated.
The Canadian FM touched the West saying while Russia targeted Germany and the UK with this kind of transnational repression it’s a first for Canada in the country’s history. Joly said the government needed to take a firm stand that transnational repression cannot happen on Canadian soil.
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Canada High Commissioner Says India Crossed Red Lines
Cameron MacKay, Canada’s high commissioner to India who left the country in August, said it’s a blunder on the part of New Delhi to think that agents of the Indian government could arrange violent crimes across Canada and the US, and get away with it. He told CBC that some severe red lines had been crossed.
MacKay said the Indian government has only denied and vilified Canada to distract its domestic audience from the real facts of what’s been happening, and they do so by attacking Canada. He claimed that some people in New Delhi made some very serious fundamental errors in their decision-making over the last couple of years.
The Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said Canada has presented no evidence whatsoever in support of the serious allegations that it has leveled against India and Indian diplomats. India has rejected attempts by the Canadian authorities to link Indian agents with criminal gangs in Canada.
