The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: India has lodged strong protest against Canada and warned of serious consequences for bilateral ties after Canadian deputy foreign affairs minister David Morrison said earlier this week that he had confirmed to a US newspaper that Indian home minister Amit Shah was “involved” in a plot to kill Canadian nationals.
The external affairs ministry summoned Canada’s acting deputy high commissioner Geoffrey Dean on Friday (November 1) and handed him a diplomatic note protesting Morrison’s statements as “absurd” and “baseless”.
“We had summoned the representative of the Canadian high commission yesterday. A diplomatic note was handed over in reference to the proceedings of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security in Ottawa on October 29, 2024. It was conveyed in the note that the government of India protests in the strongest terms to the absurd and baseless references made to the Union home minister of India before the committee by deputy minister David Morrison,” external affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at a press briefing on Saturday.
“In fact, the revelation that high Canadian officials deliberately leak unfounded insinuations to the international media as part of a conscious strategy to discredit India and influence other nations only confirms the view [the] government of India has long held about [the] current Canadian government’s political agenda and behavioural pattern. Such irresponsible actions will have serious consequences for bilateral ties.”
Morrison on Tuesday made the disclosure at a hearing by the Canadian parliamentary committee on public safety and national security. It came amid a widening diplomatic row between the two countries and a year after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alleged that agents of the Indian government were involved in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a pro-Khalistan Canadian national proscribed as a terrorist by India.
The Washington Post on October 14 had cited unnamed Canadian officials as saying they had told the Indian government that “conversations and texts among Indian diplomats” ordered out of the country that day “include references” to Shah and a senior official in the Research and Analysis Wing “who have authorised … intelligence-gathering missions and attacks on Sikh separatists” in Canada.
Jaiswal said that India also formally protested after some consular officials in Canada were informed by the Canadian government that they were under audio and video surveillance.
“Some of our consular officials were recently informed by the Canadian government that they have been and continue to be under audio and video surveillance. Their communications have also been intercepted. We have formally protested to the Canadian government as we deem these actions to be a flagrant violation of relevant diplomatic and consular conventions,” he said.
“By citing technicalities, the Canadian government cannot justify the fact that it is indulging in harassment and intimidation. Our diplomatic and consular personnel are already functioning in an environment of extremism and violence. This action of the Canadian government aggravates the situation and is incompatible with established diplomatic norms and practices.”
In response to a Canadian cyber security report from earlier this week, the external affairs ministry said that it “appears to be another example of a Canadian strategy to attack India”.
“As I mentioned earlier, their senior officials have openly confessed that they are seeking to manipulate global opinion against India. As on other occasions, imputations are made without any evidence,” Jaiswal said.
Canada’s cybersecurity report said: “We assess that Indian state-sponsored cyber threat actors likely conduct cyber threat activity against government of Canada networks for the purpose of espionage. We judge that official bilateral relations between Canada and India will very likely drive Indian state-sponsored cyber threat activity against Canada.”
Jaiswal said that the atmosphere in Canada has “reached high levels of intolerance and extremism” after reports of the cancellation of Diwali celebrations at the Parliament House in Ottawa.
“We have seen some reports in this regard. It is unfortunate that the prevailing atmosphere in Canada has reached high levels of intolerance and extremism,” he said.
In recent weeks, the diplomatic row between India and Canada widened after the two countries expelled six diplomats each, including their top envoys.
India on October 14 announced that Canada had informed it that six of its diplomats, including high commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma, were “persons of interests” in a criminal investigation.
The Indian external affairs ministry summoned the Canadian charge d’affaires to announce that New Delhi was withdrawing the six diplomats and declaring six Canadian diplomats personae non gratae.
At that same time, Canada also stated that expulsion notices had been given to the six Indian diplomats in Ottawa.
On the same day, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police held a press briefing to say that its investigations went beyond the Nijjar killing and involved evidence of Indian diplomats allegedly using members of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi’s gang in criminally intimidating Canadian nationals of Indian origin.