Indian government officials linked to homicides, extortions and coercion in Canada, pose threat to public safety, alleges RCMP

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Indian government agents have been linked to homicides, extortions and other violent criminal activities in Canada, the RCMP said Monday, as Ottawa expelled India’s High Commissioner and five other diplomats, plunging the already fraught relationship between the two countries into a deeper chill.

The RCMP said they have clear evidence tying Indian officials to the crimes but released no details, citing the need to protect open investigations and court proceedings.

In an extraordinary cascade of events on Thanksgiving Monday, the Indian government also expelled six diplomats. Canada’s expulsions were punishment for what it deemed India’s failure to co-operate with police investigations, and India’s were in retribution for what it called “preposterous” and politically motivated allegations. Each country’s diplomats have until Oct. 19 to leave.

At a news conference in Ottawa, RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme and Assistant Commissioner Brigitte Gauvin also declined to say when the alleged crimes took place, how many investigations remain open, or how many Indian government agents are implicated.

Commissioner Duheme said the police have gathered evidence that allegedly reveals the “breadth and depth of criminal activity orchestrated by agents of the government of India.”

In total, the RCMP said 30 people have so far been charged in connection to homicides and cases of extortion and the police alleged that some of those individuals are connected to the Indian government.

In addition, Commissioner Duheme said police have uncovered “well over a dozen credible and imminent threats to life,” which have triggered the duty to warn by law enforcement. He said the targets were members of the pro-Khalistan movement, which has the goal of carving out a separate Sikh state from Indian territory.

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“Despite law enforcement’s action, the harm has continued, posing a serious threat to our public safety,” Commissioner Duheme said, as he urged victims and others with information to come forward to police.

He said that it is rare for the police to release information before charges are laid but emphasized that it was warranted in this case because of how serious the public-safety threats are. He said there were multiple open investigations into the alleged involvement of agents of the government of India in “serious criminal activity in Canada.”

The alleged actions of Indian diplomats and consular officials in Canada are “without a doubt, a contravention of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations,” said Assistant Commissioner Gauvin.

Officials released the news just as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau grapples with internal Liberal Party dissent against his continued leadership and days before he is set to testify at the public inquiry into foreign interference. China and India are identified by Canadian intelligence agencies as leading perpetrators of foreign interference in this country.

Mr. Trudeau held a separate press conference later Monday in which he declined to comment on the move by some of his MPs to persuade him to resign but he confirmed that he planned to lead the Liberals into the next general election. He appeared alongside Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc.

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Mr. Trudeau said the police pre-emptively released the allegations against India in an effort to “disrupt the pattern of Indian diplomats” collecting information on Canadians through “questionable and illegal means.”

Mr. Trudeau alleged that information was then fed to criminal organizations, which subsequently committed violent crimes, including killing and extortion.

“We will never tolerate the involvement of a foreign government threatening and killing Canadian citizens on Canadian soil – a deeply unacceptable violation of Canada’s sovereignty and of international law,” the Prime Minister said.

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He added that the police “have clear and compelling evidence” that Indian agents have engaged in, and continue to engage in, “activities that pose a significant threat to public safety.” Mr. Trudeau said that includes coercive behaviour targeting South Asian Canadians, and involvement in more than a dozen threatening and violent acts, including murder.

The Prime Minister confirmed that one of those slayings was of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June, 2023. However, no police or government official would specify on Monday what other homicides in Canada are allegedly linked to Indian officials, though they said there was more than one. The Washington Post reported that a second killing linked to the Indian government is of Sukhdool Singh, who was shot in Winnipeg in September, 2023. The Globe and Mail has not independently verified this information.

Mr. Trudeau first accused Indian government officials a year ago of being connected to Mr. Nijjar’s death. That public declaration opened the rift between the two countries. Mr. Nijjar, whom New Delhi designated a terrorist, was part of the separatist, pro-Khalistan movement.

Since those public accusations, Ms. Joly said that the violence has increased.

The Prime Minister told reporters that government officials and the RCMP offered their Indian counterparts a path to co-operation, which would have avoided Monday’s developments, but he said India refused. Instead, Mr. Trudeau said that since last fall, the Indian government’s response has been to “deny, to obfuscate, to attack” both him personally and the Canadian government and police agencies.

Commissioner Duheme said RCMP Deputy Commissioner Mark Flynn; Nathalie Drouin, the Prime Minister’s national-security and intelligence adviser; and David Morrison, deputy minister for Foreign Affairs, met with Indian counterparts in Singapore over the weekend to present the evidence after earlier attempts to meet with Indian law enforcement were rejected.

A senior Canadian official said texts and messages from Indian officials about intelligence gathering and attacks on Sikhs in Canada were shared with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s national-security adviser Ajit Doval and Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah. They said the Mounties also had evidence that six diplomats, including High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma, were involved in the plot to kill Mr. Nijjar.

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Despite what the official called strong evidence, they said Indian officials flatly denied the allegations.

The Globe is not identifying the source, who was not authorized to discuss the matter on national-security grounds.

Ms. Joly said the government decided to expel the diplomats after India refused a request to waive their immunity so that they could co-operate in the police investigation. She said the expulsion was warranted given public-safety concerns and the decision was only made after the RCMP gathered “ample, clear and concrete evidence.”

In response to the expulsion notice, Global Affairs Canada said India withdrew its officials.

The Foreign Minister said she was in touch with all of Canada’s Five Eyes intelligence allies: the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. The Prime Minister also spoke with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Mr. Trudeau noted that the United States has dealt with “a similar pattern of behaviour from India.”

The assassination plots against Sikh separatist leaders in Canada and the U.S. have tested their relationship with India, as the Western countries hope to forge deeper ties with New Delhi to counter China’s rising global influence.

In a series of statements Monday, the Indian government accused Canada of making “assertions without any facts” and accused Ottawa of “a deliberate strategy of smearing India for political gains.”

“The Government of India strongly rejects these preposterous imputations and ascribes them to the political agenda of the Trudeau Government.”

India summoned Canada’s chargé d’affaires in India, Stewart Wheeler, to its Foreign Ministry Monday. In a statement, the Indian government said Mr. Wheeler was told that “the baseless targeting of the Indian High Commissioner and other diplomats and officials in Canada was completely unacceptable.”

India then expelled Mr. Wheeler and five other Canadian diplomats.

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On his way out of the meeting, Mr. Wheeler told reporters in India that the Canadian government had provided “credible, irrefutable evidence of ties between agents of the government of India and a murder of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil.”

India has long demanded this information, Mr. Wheeler noted, and he urged the Indian government to investigate the allegations.

Monday’s revelations are the result of years of police work that took on more urgency, as the violence recently escalated, the RCMP said. In February, the federal police force set up a specific team to investigate the targeting of people in the South Asian community and specifically members of the pro-Khalistan movement.

Mr. LeBlanc said more than a dozen municipal and provincial police forces are working with the RCMP on continuing criminal investigations. He repeatedly declined to release more information, saying secrecy was needed to continue the police work.

Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre called the allegations “extremely concerning” and urged the end of any foreign interference by India and other countries. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh was briefed on the Indian interference by Mr. Trudeau’s national-security and intelligence adviser. In his own statement, he urged more action from the Canadian government, including sanctions.

In response Ms. Joly noted that expelling diplomats is one of the more serious consequences in foreign relations but she added that everything is on the table should the government decide to level more consequences.

With reports from Reuters