PHOTO: Hardeep Singh Nijjar entered Canada through fake passport goes by name Ravi Sharma

Hardeep Singh Nijjar entered Canada through fake passport goes by name Ravi Sharma.

Prominent Sikh leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, was on Interpol most wanted list before being killed in Canada. 

India on Tuesday (September 19) expelled a top Canadian diplomat hours after Canada’s similar move of expelling an Indian diplomat.  

The tit-for-tat moves mark a significant strain in the bilateral relations, coming at a time when India is already expressing displeasure over Canada’s perceived inaction regarding Sikh separatists advocating for an independent homeland they call Khalistan.

India’s foreign ministry on Tuesday responded in kind, saying it had expelled a senior Canadian diplomat based in India.

“The concerned diplomat has been asked to leave India within the next five days,” it said in a statement. “The decision reflects Government of India’s growing concern at the interference of Canadian diplomats in our internal matters and their involvement in anti-India activities.”

Nijjar was a prominent Sikh leader in western Canada, and according to local police, he was gunned down in his truck in June by two masked gunmen outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Columbia.

His death both shocked and outraged the Sikh community in Canada, one of the largest outside of India and home to more than 770,000 members of the religious minority.

Nijjar supported the demand for a Sikh homeland in India’s northern state of Punjab, the birthplace of the Sikh religion, which borders Pakistan. He was reportedly organising an unofficial referendum in India for an independent Sikh nation at the time of this death.

Trudeau on Monday said any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen was “an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty”.

On Tuesday, India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said allegations of India’s involvement in any act of violence in Canada are “absurd and motivated”.

On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described in parliament what he called credible allegations that India was connected to Nijjar’s assassination in British Columbia state in June.

The Indian government dismissed the allegations as “absurd” and asked Canada instead to crack down on anti-India groups operating in its territory.