London: The prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, on Wednesday said that Canada was ‘not looking to provoke or create a fight with India’, The Guardian reported.
Trudeau was testifying at a public inquiry into foreign interference when he took on India saying that the Asian country made a ‘horrific mistake’ by violating Canadian sovereignty.
‘The Indian government made a horrific mistake in thinking that they could interfere as aggressively as they did in the safety and sovereignty of Canada. We need to respond in order to ensure Canadians’ safety,’ The Guardian quoted him as saying.
A fresh bouts of diplomatic row is escalating between two countries with mutual expulsion of senior diplomats on Monday.
It all began after Canadian PM accused India of involvement in the murder of a Sikh a separatist in British Columbia.
Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian citizen, was shot dead outside a Sikh temple in June last year.
While favouring valuable relationship with India, Trudeau said that Canada had ‘clear and certainly now ever clearer indications that India had violated Canada’s sovereignty’.
Alongside targeting India, Trudeau claimed citing classified intelligence that members of the opposition Conservative party were ‘engaged’ or at risk of being part of foreign inference efforts, according to The Guardian.
Earlier, the Canadian police accused the Indian diplomats of working with a jailed gangster to target Sikh dissidents living in the country.
A spokesperson for India’s ministry of external affairs responded to Trudeau’s remarks saying that Canada had not presented any evidence to support its serious allegations against India.
The spokesperson also said the responsibility for causing damage to India-Canada relations from this cavalier behaviour ‘lies with Prime Minister Trudeau alone’.
Meanwhile, Trudeau accused Indian officials of being uncooperative when Canadian officials privately shared evidence with them.