Canada warns India to treat Sikh slaying allegation seriously

British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, who was at the United Nations, said his nation wants India’s “full cooperation” with Canada in the probe.

Trudeau said the case is “extremely serious” and “has far reaching consequences … for Canada”.

Trudeau said his government did not rush to judgment in the case and had worked closely with its intelligence agencies.

“We wanted to make sure that we had a solid grounding in understanding what was going on and analysis and indeed in facts,” he said, adding that Ottawa had “fully shared with the government of India the seriousness… of our preoccupations and indeed conclusions.”

“NO SURPRISE TO SIKHS”

A representative of the World Sikh Organization of Canada, Mukhbir Singh, said his countrymen may have been “shocked” by Trudeau’s assertion “but it was no surprise to the Sikh community.”

“For decades, India has targeted Sikhs in Canada with espionage, disinformation and now murder,” he alleged.

A Sikh lawyer in the Toronto area, Harkirt Singh Dhadda, said Sikhs want to see “those who pulled the trigger and the ones who plotted this assassination” brought to justice.

In a sign of the simmering crisis, Ottawa recently suspended negotiations for a free-trade agreement with India, and last week the minister of trade cancelled a trip to the country planned for October.

In contrast, the US government’s relations with India have steadily been upgraded as Washington views New Delhi as a key ally in countering Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

President Joe Biden rolled out the red carpet in June for Modi, hosting him in only the third state visit of his presidency.