The long-running diplomatic dispute between India and Canada worsened after the two countries expelled senior officials from each other following the June 2023 assassination of a Sikh separatist leader on Canadian soil.

Speaking live on television Monday following a busy diplomatic day, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said India made a “monumental mistake” by supporting criminal activity against Canadians on the Canadian soil.

His comments come as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) release the first details of stunning allegations against Indian government agents in the country. Canada has accused Indian officials of playing a direct role in the assassination of Canadian Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Ottawa’s allegations have inflamed tensions in already tense relations between the two countries, which deteriorated last year after Mr. Trudeau announced that his government had evidence linking Indian government agents to Nijjar’s murder . The claim sparked a furious response from India, which denied the allegations.

On Monday, India’s foreign ministry issued a scathing response, after receiving a diplomatic communication suggesting that the Indian high commissioner and other diplomats are “persons of interest” in Canada’s investigation.

He said India rejects the “absurd imputations” and calls them a political agenda of the Trudeau government.

Canada has expelled six Indian diplomats, including Indian High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma, and consular officials from the country “in connection with a targeted campaign against Canadian citizens by agents linked to the Indian government,” the Canadian Ministry of Defense said. Foreign Affairs, Global Affairs Canada.

India’s foreign ministry responded by ordering the expulsion of six Canadian diplomats, including Acting High Commissioner Stewart Ross Wheeler.

He was also summoned by the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to protest Canada’s expulsion of Indian diplomats.

“It is in the interests of our countries and their people to get to the bottom of this matter,” Mr Wheeler told reporters before leaving the Foreign Office.

Analysts say doubling down on pressure from both sides on Canada, alleging a broader and increasingly serious campaign by the Narendra Modi government to target what it sees as anti-India elements, could mean a collapse of relationships for a long period in the future.

Calling it an “extraordinary development,” Michael Kugleman, director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute, said that “we cannot rule out the possibility of a formal severance of diplomatic relations.”

“With so much anger on both sides, and with each side doubling down on pressure – Canada says India is committing transnational repression and India says Canada sponsors terrorists – it is hard to imagine that tensions will subside any time soon,” he said. The Independent.

Canada’s response is driven by a number of factors, including frustration with New Delhi as well as domestic politics, Kugleman said.

“But it is also concluded that it is in the public interest to provide more information about India’s role in transnational repression – perhaps partly motivated by the hope that this will prompt India to relax the activities it claims to carry out on Canadian soil. » he added.

Mr. Trudeau stood by his statements on the RCMP’s unusual disclosure of details of the investigations.

The RCMP said an “extraordinary situation” forced it to speak out about what it discovered during its multiple investigations into the involvement of Indian agents in “serious criminal activities in Canada.”

“It is not our usual process to publicly release information about ongoing investigations, in an effort to preserve their integrity. However, we believe it is necessary to do so at this time due to the significant threat to public safety in our country,” he said.

He said the law enforcement situation has deteriorated and they have obtained evidence demonstrating four very serious problems, including violent extremism, the alleged link of Indian government agents to homicides and acts violence, and interference in democratic processes and the use of organized crime.

Mr. Trudeau said: “I think it is clear that the Indian government made a fundamental error in thinking that it could support criminal activity against Canadians here on Canadian soil. Whether it is murder, extortion or other acts of violence, it is absolutely unacceptable.

“No country, and especially not a democracy that defends the rule of law, can accept this fundamental violation of its sovereignty,” he said.

RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme also spoke at a hastily arranged conference, saying the team had learned “a significant amount of information about the breadth and depth of criminal activity orchestrated by agents of the Indian government.

Mr. Duheme declined to provide details, citing ongoing investigations, but said there had been more than a dozen credible and imminent threats that led police to warn members of the South Asian community , notably the pro-Khalistan, or Sikh independence, movement.

Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said India had been asked to lift diplomatic and consular immunity and cooperate with the investigation, but had refused.

She called on the Indian government to support the ongoing investigation “as it is in the interest of both our countries to get to the bottom of this matter.”

She said the violence “actually increased” following the allegations a year ago.

Four Indian nationals were arrested and charged with Nijjar’s murder. Nijjar, 45, was fatally shot in his van after leaving the Sikh temple he led in Surrey, British Columbia, in June 2023.

He was a Canadian citizen born to Indian parents who owned a plumbing business while spearheading the Khalistani movement to demand an independent Sikh homeland in India.

India designated Nijjar as a terrorist in 2020 and, at the time of his death, was seeking his arrest for his alleged involvement in an attack on a Hindu priest.