NEW DELHI: India denied on Saturday (November 2) that its Interior Minister, Amit Shah, had plotted to target Sikh militants on Canadian soil and said it had officially reprimanded Ottawa for the “absurd and baseless” allegation.
Canada is home to the largest Sikh community outside India and includes activists from “Khalistan,” a fringe separatist movement seeking an independent state for the religious minority carved out of Indian territory.
Canadian officials said this week that Ottawa traced a campaign targeting Canadian Khalistan activists to the highest levels of the Indian government and implicated Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s powerful right-hand man.
“The Government of India protests in the strongest terms against the absurd and baseless references made to the Union Home Minister of India,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters.
“We summoned the representative of the Canadian High Commission yesterday. A diplomatic note was given,” he added.
Jaiswal accused Canadian officials of deliberately leaking “unfounded insinuations” to the media to “discredit India.”
“Such irresponsible actions will have serious consequences on bilateral relations,” he said.
