Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday there are “credible allegations” connecting the assassination of a Sikh leader in Canada to the Indian government.
“Over the past number of weeks, Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar,” he said.
Trudeau added Canada would “hold perpetrators of this murder to account.”
Nijjar, 45, the president of Guru Nanak Gurdwara in Surrey, British Columbia, near Vancouver, was shot outside the house of worship by two masked men in July.
No arrests have been made, but police released a description of a vehicle the suspects may have used.
Nijjar was part of the Khalistan independence movement, which aims to establish a Sihk homeland in India’s Punjab region. Indian authorities deemed him a terrorist and sought his extradition in 2016, according to CBC News, but Canada rejected the request.
Canada is home to roughly 770,000 Sikhs.
In his speech to parliament, Trudeau called the murder an “extremely serious matter” which he brought up directly with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi “in no uncertain terms” at the G-20 Summit earlier this month in New Delhi.
The murder “is contrary to the fundamental rules by which free, open and democratic societies conduct themselves,” Trudeau said.
Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said Monday the head of Indian intelligence in the country has been expelled as a consequence.
The Indian Embassy in Ottawa has not commented publicly on the developments.
