India on Saturday said it had summoned the representative of the Canadian High Commission and expressed a strong protest over Ottawa’s allegations against Union Home Minister Amit Shah. India called Canada’s remarks “absurd” and “baseless.”
Earlier, Canadian Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister David Morrison said to a parliamentary panel that he told the Washington Post that “Shah was behind the plots to target Sikh separatists on Canadian soil.”
“The official was summoned yesterday (November 1, Friday). And a diplomatic note was handed over in reference to the proceedings of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security in Ottawa on October 29, 2024, “ the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at a press briefing on Saturday. Jaiswal also said the revelations by the high Canadian officials deliberately leaked unfounded insinuations to the international media as part of a conscious strategy to discredit India.
“It was conveyed in the note that the government of India protests in the strongest terms to the absurd and baseless references made to the Union Home Minister of India before the committee by Deputy Minister David Morrison. Such irresponsible actions will have serious consequences for bilateral ties,” Jaiswal said.
The diplomatic relations between India and Canada have already deteriorated after Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau alleged the involvement of New Delhi in the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June 2023.
