India protests Canada for linking Home Minister Shah to Sikh separatist plot

By Anadolu staff

India has lodged a protest after Canada linked Indian Home Minister Amit Shah to the plots to target the Sikh community on Canadian soil.

“We had summoned the representative of the Canadian High Commission yesterday (Friday). A diplomat note was handed over,” Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said on Saturday in New Delhi.

He said it was conveyed in the note that the government of India protests “in the strongest terms the absurd and baseless references made to the Union Home Minister of India (Amit Shah) before the Committee by Deputy Minister David Morrison.”

This week, Canadian Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister David Morrison told a parliamentary panel that he told the US-based daily that Shah was behind the plots.

There has been a breakdown in Canada-India relations after Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau linked New Delhi to serious crimes against Sikh Canadians, including murder. New Delhi has rejected the allegations made by Ottawa.

Last month, Canada expelled six Indian diplomats, and the national police force identified them as persons of interest in the June 2023 assassination of Canadian-Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Najjar, a vocal supporter of the creation of a separate Sikh state in India.