Canada shares evidence of Indian involvement in Nijjar murder, urges cooperation

Canadian evidence of "credible allegations" that Indian agents were involved in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar many weeks ago has been shared with India, according to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He has urged New Delhi to "commit constructively" to working with Ottawa to ascertain the truth in this grave matter.

Following Trudeau's incendiary accusations of the "potential" participation of Indian spies in the execution of Khalistani fanatic Nijjar on his country's soil on June 18 in British Columbia, tensions between India and Canada erupted early this week.

In 2020, India deemed Nijjar to be a terrorist.

In retaliation for Ottawa's decision to dismiss an Indian official over the matter, India strongly rejected the accusations as "absurd" and "motivated" and expelled a senior Canadian ambassador.

"I just want to stress that we have been sharing those charges with India for weeks. They are credible allegations. During a press conference on Friday with the visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trudeau declared, "We are working with our partners.

And we are requesting that India work cooperatively with Canada to gather information about this situation. To work with them, we are there. And we have been for several weeks," replied Trudeau in response to a query.

"Canada has informed India of the reliable allegations I discussed on Monday. We completed that a few weeks ago.We sincerely hope that they communicate with us so that we can learn more about this extremely important issue. That's crucial, he added.

As tensions between the two countries over the killing of Nijjar reached an all-time low on Thursday, India demanded Canada to crack down hard on terrorists and anti-India elements operating from its soil and suspended visa services for Canadians.

India has requested that Canada reduce the size of its diplomatic mission there, stating that both countries' diplomatic missions should be of comparable size and rank. Greater than New Delhi's diplomatic staff in Canada is Canada's diplomatic staff in India.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in New Delhi responded, when asked whether Canada had provided any information with India regarding the issue, "No specific information has been shared by Canada on this subject, either then or before or subsequently. We are willing to look at any specific facts, as we have stated or, in my opinion, have made quite obvious. The Canadian side has been informed of this, and we have made it clear to them that we are ready to consider any specific information that is given to us. Arindam Bagchi, the MEA's spokeswoman, said in New Delhi that up to this point, we have not received any such precise information.

India also claimed to have extremely "specific evidence" of illegal activity by people based in Canada, which it regularly provided with the Canadian authorities but which went unacted upon.

According to a media report citing Canadian government sources, Canada's accusations of India's involvement in the killing of a Sikh separatist in Surrey, which sparked a diplomatic dispute between the two countries, are based on both human and signals intelligence as well as inputs from an ally from Ottawa's Five Eye intelligence network.

A story in the local media claims that Canada's accusations that India was responsible for the murder of Nijjar are supported by both human and signal intelligence as well as input from a partner in Ottawa's Five Eye intelligence network.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation revealed that throughout the course of a month-long inquiry, the Canadian government gathered both human and signals intelligence.

The Canadian government has not made its evidence public but has hinted that it may do so at some point in the future.