(Bloomberg) — Sign up for Menaka Doshi’s India Edition newsletter — an insider’s guide to the emerging economic powerhouse, and the billionaires and companies behind its rise, delivered weekly.

Most read on Bloomberg

Canada and India have expelled their most senior envoys, significantly widening their divide as Canadian police leveled sweeping allegations that Indian diplomats and agents are involved in the “escalation” of killings and killings. ‘extortion.

Indian High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma and five other officials, including Toronto’s top diplomat, were ordered to leave Canada on Monday. Global Affairs Canada said India refused to lift officials’ diplomatic immunity so they could cooperate with an investigation into a “targeted campaign” against Canadians.

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said the decision to expel those responsible was taken only after police gathered “sufficient, clear and concrete evidence” that identified them as people of interest in Hardeep’s murder. Singh Nijjar, a Canadian Sikh activist murdered in British Columbia last time. year.

“We continue to call on the Indian government to support the ongoing investigation into the Nijjar case, as it is in the interest of both our countries to get to the bottom of this matter,” Joly said in a statement.

India said it removed the officials after they were named as persons of interest in an investigation. He later announced he had expelled six Canadian diplomats, including the top envoy to New Delhi.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will address the developments at a news conference in Ottawa later Monday. The diplomatic expulsions and high-profile allegations against India mark a further breakdown in ties between the two countries and could complicate U.S. efforts to court India as a counterweight to China in the Indo-Pacific region.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police called an extraordinary press conference on Monday, citing a threat to public safety. Commissioner Mike Duheme said the agency had “learned a significant amount of information about the breadth and depth of criminal activity orchestrated by agents of the Indian government.”

Attempts to work with Indian law enforcement failed, and Canadian officials felt public intervention had become necessary, Duheme said. The RCMP accused Indian officials of exploiting their position to carry out clandestine activities, secretly gathering information that was then used to target members of Canada’s South Asian community.

There have been “well over a dozen credible and imminent death threats” against members of the Canadian South Asian community, Duheme said. The threats were specifically aimed at those involved in promoting an independent Sikh state that would be separate from India. The RCMP added that it had evidence linking Indian agents to homicides and the use of organized crime.

About eight people have been arrested and charged in homicide cases, and at least 22 for extortion, and “some of them have links to the Indian government,” deputy commissioner Brigitte Gauvin told the conference. press. She also said police believe there is a connection between the Indian government and the Lawrence Bishnoi criminal gang, which started in India and is believed to have spread to Canada.

The two countries have been locked in a diplomatic dispute since Trudeau’s allegation last year of “credible” links between Indian agents and the killing of Nijjar, a Sikh separatist and Canadian citizen.

The allegation sparked a backlash from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, with India expelling dozens of Canadian diplomats and restricting travel. Modi’s government has repeatedly denied any involvement in the killing of Nijjar, who India had declared a terrorist.

India has accused the Trudeau government of baselessly targeting its officials and putting their security at risk.

“We have no confidence in the current Canadian government’s commitment to ensuring their security,” India’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

The Indian government revealed earlier Monday that it had received a diplomatic communication from Canada that Verma and other officials were “persons of interest” in an investigation.

The Indian government did not specify the investigation, but the statement referred to allegations made by Trudeau in September 2023, when the Canadian leader first publicly accused India of being involved in Nijjar’s killing .

Gauvin said the involvement of Indian diplomats and consular officials in criminal activities would constitute a violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

Canadian police have charged several Indian nationals for Nijjar’s murder. U.S. prosecutors, in another case, charged an Indian government agent with leading a foiled plot to assassinate Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a Sikh separatist and U.S. citizen, on U.S. soil. After these allegations, which included reference to the Nijjar affair, the Indian government formed a committee to look into the matter.

On Monday, the State Department said the Indian investigative team would travel to Washington this week to discuss the Justice Department’s case against Nikhil Gupta, an Indian citizen accused of trying to hire a hitman to kill Pannun on the orders of an anonymous Indian government employee. . Gupta pleaded not guilty.

India “informed the United States that it is continuing its efforts to investigate other links between the former government employee and will determine necessary follow-up actions,” the State Department said.

–With help from Sudhi Ranjan Sen, Iain Marlow and Derek Decloet.

(Updates with new information starting in first paragraph.)

Most read from Bloomberg Businessweek

©2024 Bloomberg LP