A man arrives in an autorickshaw at the Canadian High Commission, in New Delhi, India, on Oct. 17.Adnan Abidi/Reuters
Ottawa undertook an all-out effort to convince New Delhi to end its hostile foreign-interference campaign in Canada after the RCMP reached out in August to say 13 Canadians were in imminent danger and the scale of India’s activities could not be stopped solely by law enforcement, The Globe and Mail has learned.
The RCMP and the Public Prosecution Service of Canada were also aware that evidence of an Indian diplomat’s role in the gangland slaying in British Columbia of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June, 2023, was about to be turned over to defence counsel for four Indian nationals accused of his murder.
The government wanted to get ahead of the publication of this information, according to a source who was briefed on the matter.
Details of what led to the Thanksgiving Day expulsions of six Indian diplomats and an even deeper rupture in bilateral relations were provided to certain people outside of government. The RCMP provided a similar briefing to the public inquiry into foreign interference, commission spokesman Michael Tansey said.
The Globe has spoken to a source who received a confidential intelligence briefing from the Prime Minister’s national-security and intelligence adviser Nathalie Drouin and David Morrison, deputy minister of foreign affairs.
The Globe is not identifying the individual who received the briefing because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the intelligence gathered on India.
Ms. Drouin and Mr. Morrison also briefed The Washington Post before the RCMP held an Oct. 14 news conference to accuse India of being linked to homicides, extortion and other violent acts in Canada, The Globe reported earlier this week.
Since Mr. Nijjar was killed, the RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service have worked in tandem to gather extensive evidence that involved intercepted communications with India diplomats, criminal proxies and a top official in the Indian government. In the briefing with the Globe source, the two senior public servants said the RCMP became increasingly alarmed at how Indian diplomats – including then high commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma – were using gangsters to intimidate, extort and murder people in Canada.
Ms. Drouin and Mr. Morrison said in the briefing that the RCMP have evidence that India was also behind the September, 2023, killing of Sikh separatist activist Sukhdool Singh Gill in Winnipeg. His death came two days after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alleged in Parliament that Indian agents were behind the slaying of Mr. Nijjar. No one has yet been charged in Mr. Gill’s murder.
The 13 people targeted by India and its criminal proxies were members of the pro-Khalistan movement, which has the goal of carving out a separate Sikh state from the Indian territory of Punjab.
Ms. Drouin and Mr. Morrison explained in the briefing that the RCMP and CSIS gathered intelligence on the six diplomats that directly linked them to violent acts and attempts to intimidate pro-Khalistani Canadians. They had also obtained intercepted intelligence that showed Indian Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah directed the operations, the source said.
The two senior officials sought two earlier meetings with Indian government counterparts to present this intelligence but were rebuffed.
A meeting was eventually set up on Oct. 12 in Singapore at which Ms. Drouin, Mr. Morrison and Deputy RCMP Commissioner Mark Flynn presented evidence to Mr. Modi’s national-security adviser Ajit Dova, a former spymaster in India’s intelligence service. The source was told that in the meeting, the Canadians offered three proposals: India could waive diplomatic immunity so the RCMP could question the six diplomats; Ottawa could expel the six; or India could accept an off-ramp – the preferred route offered by the Canadians.
The source said he was told the off-ramp involved four proposals. India could voluntarily withdraw the six diplomats and India could expand its Enquiries Committee investigation to Canada. India set up that committee to investigate U.S. allegations of New Delhi’s involvement in a murder-for-hire plot against prominent U.S.-Canadian Khalistani activist Gurpatwant Pannun in New York last year.
A third proposal was for both countries to set up a high-level committee to work together to end foreign interference. The Canadians also asked that New Delhi direct Indian crime lord Lawrence Bishnoi, who runs his criminal syndicate from his prison cell, to order his associates in Canada to cease and desist.
Mr. Doval rejected all the Canadian requests, leading the government to announce on Thanksgiving Day that it had expelled six Indian diplomats. New Delhi responded by ordering six Canadian diplomats to leave the country.
It is not known whether the timing of the announcement was linked to Mr. Trudeau’s appearance at the foreign-interference inquiry on Oct. 16. The expulsion and extraordinary allegations against India gave Mr. Trudeau an opportunity to demonstrate a tough approach to Indian foreign interference. The inquiry has largely focused on China’s extensive interference in Canadian domestic affairs, activities that were ignored or played down by Mr. Trudeau and top national-security officials.
RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme and Assistant Commissioner Brigitte Gauvin used the Oct. 14 news conference to say that, since Mr. Nijjar’s slaying, they had warned 13 Canadians that they could be targets of Indian agents. So far, the RCMP said eight people in Canada have been charged in connection with murder cases and 22 have been charged with extortion.
The Mounties have not publicly linked India to the murder of Mr. Gill. Nor have they identified the third person believed to have been killed at India’s direction.
The two top Mounties told reporters they have clear evidence tying Indian officials to the violent crimes but released no details, citing the need to protect open investigations and court proceedings. They also declined to say when the alleged crimes took place, how many investigations remain open, or how many Indian government agents are implicated.