The Ministry of External Affairs on Thursday took a sharp jibe at Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for espousing the ‘One India’ policy, saying there was a “gap between his actions and words”.
India and Canada’s diplomatic relations hit rock bottom this week after the latter communicated to New Delhi that its senior diplomats were “persons of interest” in the probe linked to Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s murder. Responding to the grave allegation, India expelled six Canadian diplomats and recalled its officials from the country.
Deposing before the Foreign Interference Commission’s inquiry, Justin Trudeau on Wednesday claimed Indian officials had been gathering information about Canadians and passing it to the Lawrence Bishnoi gang.
He also claimed that his government believes in the ‘One India’ policy.
Reacting to the remark, the Ministry of External Affairs said India had requested the arrest and extradition of several members of the gang from Canada but it didn’t act on New Delhi’s concerns.
“So we have seen those comments of Prime Minister Trudeau that he believes in one India policy. But so far, the actions that we have requested are against anti-India elements who actually go against one India, who call for dismemberment and disunity of the country, who espouse separatist ideology. No action has been taken,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said today.
“So you know in a sense there is a difference. There is a gap between action and words here,” he added.
Regarding the diplomatic fallout, the MEA stated that India had summoned Canada’s acting High Commissioner and conveyed concerns about the safety of Indian diplomats.
“We had summoned the acting High Commissioner of Canada and thereafter conveyed that we had no faith that the Canadian government would look after the safety of our diplomats and therefore we had taken a decision to withdraw our High Commissioner and along with him 5 other diplomats. After that, there was a communication from Canadian side asking them to leave but we had withdrawn our diplomats before their decision,” Jaiswal said.
Justin Trudeau on Wednesday admitted that his government had not provided India with any hard evidence on Indian agents’ alleged involvement in the murder of Nijjar.
“Behind the scenes (we were trying to make) India to co-operate with us. Their ask was…give us the evidence you have on us. Our response was it is within your security agency. You should be looking into how much they know, you should be engaging… ‘No, no but show us the evidence’. At that point, it was primarily intelligence, not hard evidentiary proof. So we said let’s work together…,” he said.
Strongly reacting to the admission, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Thursday morning that Trudeau’s “cavalier behaviour” was responsible for damaging India and Canada’s relations.
“What we have heard today only confirms what we have been saying consistently all along – Canada has presented us no evidence whatsoever in support of the serious allegations that it has chosen to level against India and Indian diplomats,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a statement earlier today.
India has dismissed Canada’s allegations as absurd and baseless. It maintains that Canada has not provided any evidence linking Indian agents to the separatist’s murder.
With inputs from PTI, ANI
