by John Hayward
Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Friday denounced the “climate of violence” and “atmosphere of intimidation” against Indian diplomats in Canada, which he said was created by Canada’s indulgence of Sikh separatists, such as Hardeep Singh Nijar, whom Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently accused the Indian government of murdering.
“Because there is freedom of speech, to make threats and intimidate diplomats, I don’t think that’s acceptable,” Jaishankar said.
“We have had an ongoing problem with Canada and the Canadian government for some years now,” he said. “The ongoing problem really revolves around the permissiveness to terrorism, extremism, and violence.”
“This permissiveness is also reflected in the fact that some important extradition requests have not been responded to from their side,” he added.
One of those requests was for Nijjar, whom Indian police attempted to extradite from Canada in 2022, according to the Hindustan Times. India filed similar requests against other members of the Sikh separatist movement, which is named after Khalistan, the prospective Sikh state they wish to carve out of India’s Punjab province.
A senior Indian police officer told the Hindustan Times in September that India had filed 21 “red notices” with Interpol for “gangsters” living in Canada, but the Canadian government ignored them all. A red notice is a request from one Interpol member to another to take an accused criminal into custody and begin extradition proceedings.