India has at least 26 extradition requests pending with Canada, the Indian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday, amid a diplomatic row between the two countries.
“These have happened over the past decade or more,” Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal told reporters during a weekly press conference.
Bilateral relations between the two countries sank to a new low this week after Ottawa linked India to the killing of a Sikh separatist leader in Canada.
In mutual moves, the two countries expelled each other’s diplomats on Monday. Ottawa said it would be expelled Six Indian diplomats and consular officials “in connection with a targeted campaign against Canadian citizens by agents associated with the Indian government.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the government acted “to disrupt the chain of operations that runs from Indian diplomats here in Canada to criminal organizations, directing violent influences on Canadians across this country.”
Agents working at the Indian High Commission in Ottawa and consulates in Vancouver and Toronto were behind dozens of violent crimes across Canada targeting opponents of the Narendra Modi government, Global News has learned.
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Although they held diplomatic and consular posts on paper, Indian agents played key roles in a spate of shootings, killings, threats, arson and extortion in Canada, according to highly placed sources familiar with the matter.
Most of the victims were supporters of the Khalistan movement, which seeks independence for India’s Sikh-majority Punjab region. But the sources said others were merely rivals of the government.
The revelation came as Canadian law enforcement continues to investigate the killing of Hardeep Singh Nigar in Surrey, British Columbia, where the killers were allegedly linked to Indian government agents.
– With files from international news
(Reporting by Krishn Kaushik, Writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar, Editing by Sudipto Ganguly)
