MELBOURNE – Australia’s foreign minister said Tuesday she raised allegations with her Indian counterpart that India has targeted Sikh activists in Canada.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong said she discussed the Canadian allegations with Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar while he was in the Australian capital, Canberra.
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India has denied Canada’s allegation that Indian Home Minister Amit Shah ordered the targeting of Sikh activists inside Canada.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police went public last with allegations that Indian diplomats were targeting Sikh separatists in Canada by sharing information about them with their government back home. They said top Indian officials were then passing that information along to Indian organized crime groups who were targeting the activists, who are Canadian citizens, with drive-by shootings, extortions and even murder.
Canada is not the only country that has accused Indian officials of plotting an assassination on foreign soil. The United States Justice Department announced criminal charges in mid-October against an Indian government employee in connection with an alleged foiled plot to kill a Sikh separatist leader living in New York City.
The Justice Department said Vikash Yadav, who authorities say directed the New York plot from India, faces murder-for-hire charges in an alleged planned killing that prosecutors have previously said was meant to precede a string of other politically motivated murders in the United States and Canada.
Wong said her message to the Sikh community was that people have a right to be safe and respected in Australia, regardless of who they are.
“We’ve made clear our concerns about the allegations under investigation. We’ve said that we respect Canada’s judicial process,” Wong said at a news conference with Jaishankar.
“We convey our views to India as you would expect us to do and we have a principled position in relation to matters such as the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary and also, frankly, the sovereignty of all countries,” she added.
Jaishankar said Canada has put Indian diplomats under surveillance, which was “unacceptable.”
Australia has close intelligence-sharing ties with Canada as members of the Five Eyes alliance that also includes the United States, Britain and New Zealand.
Over the weekend, India officially protested Canada's allegation of Sikh activists being targeted there as “absurd and baseless.”
Jaishankar on Tuesday also condemned reports of vandalism at a Hindu temple near Toronto in Canada on Sunday as “deeply concerning.” In videos on social media, demonstrators carrying yellow flags in support of the Sikh separatist movement can be seen clashing with others, including some holding India's national flag, inside the temple complex. Indian consular officials were visiting the temple where the clashes erupted. It was unclear how the violence began.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the violence at the temple “unacceptable,” adding that “every Canadian has the right to practice their faith freely and safely.”
The violence drew a strong rebuke from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday. “Equally appalling are the cowardly attempts to intimidate our diplomats. Such acts of violence will never weaken India’s resolve,” he wrote on the social media platform X, adding that India expects Canada to ensure justice.
A demonstration that included protesters holding India's national flag near the same temple on Monday night was ordered to disperse after Peel Regional Police said on social media that weapons were seen within the crowd. Police declared the protest an unlawful assembly, and warned anyone who remains could face arrest.
Relations between the two countries soured after Trudeau said last year there were credible evidence the Indian government had links to the assassination of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada. India has vehemently rejected the accusation.
New Delhi, long anxious about Sikh separatist groups, has increasingly accused the Canadian government of giving free rein to separatists from a once-strong movement to create an independent Sikh homeland, known as Khalistan, in India.
The diplomatic row led to the expulsion of each side's top diplomats last month.
Jaishankar said, “We believe in freedoms, but we also believe freedom should not be misused.”
Trudeau has said Modi underlined to him at a G20 summit in India last year that he wanted Canada to arrest people who have been outspoken against the Indian government. Trudeau said he told Modi that he felt the actions fall within free speech in Canada.
Trudeau added that he told Modi his government would work with India on concerns about terrorism, incitement of hate or anything that is unacceptable in Canada. But Trudeau also noted that advocating for separatism, though not Canadian government policy, is not illegal in Canada.
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Associated Press writer Krutika Pathi in New Delhi contributed to this report.