NEW DELHI: Relations between India and Canada have reached a historic low as the countries expelled each other’s diplomats in an ongoing row over the killing of a Sikh separatist activist on Canadian soil.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused India’s government on Monday of “supporting criminal activity against Canadians here on Canadian soil,” and the country’s Foreign Ministry announced the expulsion of six Indian diplomats, including the high commissioner.

The ministry said Canadian police had gathered evidence, which identified them as “persons of interest” in last year’s killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was gunned down in Surrey, British Columbia.

India immediately rejected the accusations as absurd, and its Ministry of External Affairs said it was expelling Canada’s acting high commissioner, his deputy, and the embassy’s four first secretaries.

Before the announcement, it also summoned the Canadian charge d’affaires and said it was withdrawing its high commissioner and “other targeted diplomats,” contradicting Canada’s statement of expulsion.

“Prime Minister Trudeau has been making these public statements repeatedly, but the evidence that he claims to possess is not available to us so we cannot make any kind of a judgment,” Dr. Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi, told Arab News.

“This is the first time the relationship is so low … It has created a lot of problems and it has done damage to relationships between the two countries for the time being.”

This is not the first time India-Canada relations have been strained. In 1974, after India conducted its first nuclear weapon test, it drew outrage from Canada, which accused it of extracting plutonium from a Canadian reactor, a gift intended for peaceful use.

Ottawa subsequently suspended its support for New Delhi’s nuclear energy program.

“The relationship was also low in the 1980s with the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane and the bombing of the plane, in which many people died,” said Prof. Ronki Ram, political science lecturer at the Punjab University.

The explosion from a bomb planted by Canada-based militants killed 329 people — the worst terrorist attack in Canadian history. India had warned the Canadian government about the possibility of attacks and accused the Canadian Security Intelligence Service of not acting on it.

But the current strain in relations is the first in which diplomats have been withdrawn.

“This is the first time that the relationship has gone down so low,” Ram said.

“Allegations and counter-allegations will have serious implications both internationally and domestically. The Indian government should look into the allegations and try to address them.”

Nijjar, a Sikh Canadian citizen, was gunned down in June 2023 outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, which has a significant number of Sikh residents. He was an outspoken supporter of the Khalistan movement, which calls for a separate Sikh homeland in parts of India’s Punjab state.

The movement is outlawed in India, considered a national security threat by the government, and Nijjar’s name appears on the Indian Home Ministry’s list of terrorists.

Canada has the largest population of Sikhs outside their native state of Punjab — about 770,000 or 2 percent of its entire population.

“Many Panjabi diaspora are in Canada, and a mini-Punjab has been established there,” Ram said.

“The government is taking an electoral interest in the landscape of Canada also. Those things are becoming very critical.”

DERA ISMAIL KHAN: Pakistan’s customs authorities have seized a large cache of weapons and ammunition at the Torkham border in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province from a vehicle arriving from Afghanistan, according to an official statement, though an Afghan official denied knowledge of any weapons trafficking at the busy border crossing.

The statement released by Pakistan Customs on Monday said that a truck carrying coal entered Pakistan’s import terminal on Friday and was selected for thorough inspection following the scanning procedure.

It revealed that the seized weapons and ammunition were US-made and valued at approximately Rs35 million ($125,000).

This development comes amid already strained relations between the two neighboring states, with a surge in militant violence in Pakistan. Authorities in Islamabad have accused Afghan officials of "facilitating" armed groups targeting Pakistani civilians and security forces, a claim denied by the Taliban administration in Kabul.

“On 11th October, 2024 at about 6:50 pm, a vehicle bearing registration No. KBL 51828 loaded with coal entered the import terminal and was regarded as abnormal in NLC [National Logistic Cell] scan image,” the statement said. “Upon examination, weapons parts/ammunitions were detected,”

It informed the recovered items included “gun barrels (15Nos), loaded magazines (170), having 30 rounds each with a total of 5,100 rounds.”

All the smuggled items were shifted to the Customs Appraisement Office for action, though the driver of the vehicle disappeared before his arrest.

“Further investigation is underway,” the statement said.

Pakistan has raised concerns that US military equipment left behind in Afghanistan after the 2021 withdrawal has ended up in the hands of militants, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), who have been using it to target Pakistani security forces.

The US government has previously said these weapons were intended for the Afghan National Army, which had been trained and equipped by US military officials prior to the Taliban’s return to power. However, much of this equipment fell into the hands of militant factions after the withdrawal of international forces.

According to Haji Hikmatullah Safi, the Torkham Gate Commissioner on the Afghan side, his country was neither aware of any attempt to smuggle arms nor had Pakistan shared any information about the development.

“We have put strict checking measures in place to discourage any kind of smuggling through this vital border crossing,” he told Arab News. “We have three separate departments for vehicle checking before they enter Pakistan.”

Asked about the development, a Pakistani customs official at Torkham, Umar Jan, confirmed the weapons recovered from the vehicle were left over by the US in Afghanistan.

“We don’t need to share this information directly or immediately with our Afghan counterparts,” he continued. “Rather, we share it with the relevant department, which can then raise the issue at the appropriate time.”