Canada withdraws 41 diplomats from India
New Delhi is to revoke Friday the diplomatic immunity of 21 Canadian diplomats.
Daily TribuneNew Delhi is to revoke Friday the diplomatic immunity of 21 Canadian diplomats.
Canada has pulled out 41 diplomats from India before their immunity is revoked by New Delhi in the aftermath of Ottawa's accusation that the South Asian country's agents were behind the killing of a Canadian Sikh.
"We have facilitated their safe departure from India," Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said Thursday of the withdrawn diplomats and their families.
"Revoking the diplomatic immunity of 41 diplomats is not only unprecedented, but also contrary to international law," Joly said Wednesday, but said Canada did not plan to retaliate in kind, so as to not "aggravate the situation."
Relations between India and Canada have plunged since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last month publicly linked Indian intelligence to the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, which New Delhi has denied.
Nijjar, who immigrated to Canada in 1997 and became a Canadian citizen in 2015, was shot dead by two masked assailants in the parking lot of a Sikh temple near Vancouver in June.
The Indian government has called the Canadian accusations over the killing "absurd" and advised its nationals not to travel to certain Canadian regions "given the increase in anti-Indian activities."
New Delhi also temporarily stopped processing visa applications in Canada.
