Canada took away 41 diplomats and their families from India. This happened because India said they might remove their special protection, and there’s a big argument about a Sikh leader who was killed.
This argument started when Canada’s leader, Justin Trudeau, said they had good reasons to think the Indian government might be involved. India strongly said they had nothing to do with it.
Besides the diplomat issue, India stopped giving visas to Canadians, saying there were dangers to its diplomats in Canada.
Canada also said they’re not going to have in-person help at some of their offices in India for a while. They still offer this service in New Delhi.
Last month, India said they’d ask some Canadian diplomats to leave so things would be fair.
Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Mélanie Joly, talked about the diplomats leaving India. She said India’s recent actions were not fair. She also said they left already, except for 21 diplomats who are still in India.
Joly said Canada won’t do the same thing back because that would break the rules everyone follows in the world. She said they just want India to follow those rules too.
Who was Hardeep Singh Nijjar?
Nijjar strongly wanted a separate place called Khalistan, which would be for Sikhs and would take some land from India. The World Sikh Organization of Canada says Nijjar often led peaceful protests. They were against what the group saw as bad treatment of people’s rights in India and in support of Khalistan.
In India, the Khalistan movement is not allowed, and the government sees it as a big danger to the country. They call some groups linked to it “terrorist organizations.” Nijjar’s name was on the list of these terrorists by the Home Ministry.
In 2020, the Indian National Investigation Agency accused him of trying to make Sikh communities worldwide support making Khalistan. They said he tried to convince Sikhs to want to break away from India, protest against the Indian government, and do violent things.
People who support Nijjar say he shouldn’t be called a terrorist. They believe this label is being used to make Nijjar look bad. His death was a shock and made the Sikh community in Canada very upset. It’s one of the biggest Sikh communities outside India, with over 770,000 members.
SOURCE:CNN