Justin Trudeau wants answers on khalistani killings
Relations between India and Canada have reached an all-time low after Canada on Monday expelled a senior Indian diplomat as part of an investigation into what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called credible claims that the Indian government may have been involved in the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada. After Nijjar was shot and killed on June 18 in front of a Sikh cultural center in Surrey, British Columbia, the Canadian Prime Minister stated in Parliament that the nation’s intelligence agencies have been looking into the accusations.
The relationship between India and Canada is deteriorating, which raises serious concerns for trade given that Canada ranks as the 18th-largest foreign contributor to India’s economy, sending almost $3.3 billion there between April 2000 and March 2023. This portion of Canadian investment makes up about 0.5% of the total amount of FDI that India has received during this time. In addition, India was Canada’s ninth-largest trading partner in 2022. Notably, the infrastructure and services sectors together made up a sizeable percentage, accounting for 40.63 percent of Canada’s overall FDI intake into India.
According to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the killing of an Indian separatist leader in the neighboring nation is “extremely serious.” Only a few hours prior, the congressman had claimed that “credible allegations” connected Indian agents to the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June. However, New Delhi has called the allegations made by the Canadian government “absurd.”
