India asks Canada to withdraw dozens of diplomatic staff – reports

BBC News:

India has asked Canada to withdraw about 40 diplomatic staff from India, reports say, in a sharp escalation of a weeks-long crisis.

Those who stayed past 10 October would lose their diplomatic immunity, the Financial Times first reported.

Last month, Canada said India may have been behind the killing of a Sikh separatist leader on Canadian soil, which India has denied.

An Indian foreign ministry official told the BBC it had no comment to make.

Canada has many more diplomats in Delhi than India has in Ottawa, and since this crisis erupted India has asked Canada for parity in its diplomatic missions.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters on Tuesday he was not seeking to escalate the rift with India.

“We’re going to continue to engage responsibly and constructively with the government of India,” he said.

Tensions heightened between the two countries, which have historically had close ties, after Mr Trudeau said in September that India may have been behind the 18 June killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

He was a Canadian citizen shot dead in his vehicle by two masked gunmen outside a Sikh temple in British Columbia.

India had designated him a terrorist in 2020.