India-Canada row: tit-for-tat moves over killing of Sikh separatist could derail long-term ties

India’s tit-for-tat expulsion of a Canadian envoy over the killing of a Sikh separatist near Vancouver could snowball into a long-term deterioration of ties between two countries which have otherwise enjoyed strong trade, investment and people-to-people to contacts, analysts have said.

On Tuesday, New Delhi rejected as “absurd” accusations by Ottawa that Indian intelligence agents were involved in the June murder of Canadian man Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia.

Hours earlier, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had told an emergency parliament session that his government had “credible allegations” linking Indian agents to the death of Nijjar, an exiled Sikh leader. It was an “unacceptable violation of our sovereignty”, he said.

Nijjar had campaigned for an independent Sikh nation known as Khalistan, a movement that had rocked India’s Punjab state in the 1980s and early 1990s. Today, the advocates are mostly among Punjabi overseas diaspora, many of whom are settled in Canada. India has often complained to Canada’s government about the activities of Sikh hardliners.