India denies Canadian allegation that it uses mobsters to target Sikh separatists in Canada

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s government on Thursday denied it was working with mobsters to target Sikh separatists in Canada as alleged publicly this week by Canadian officials in an escalating diplomatic dispute.

India’s External Affairs Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal denied that India was in cahoots with India-based mobsters in Canada and even suggested that Canadian authorities had been resisting India’s attempts to extradite those people to India.

“It is strange that people who we asked to be deported” are being blamed by the Canadians for “committing crimes in Canada,” Jaiswal said.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and police officials went public this week with allegations that Indian diplomats were targeting Sikh separatists in Canada by sharing information about them with their government back home. They said top Indian officials were then passing that information along to Indian organized crime groups who were targeting the activists, who are Canadian citizens, with drive-by shootings, extortions and even murder.

The two sides ordered the expulsion of top diplomats this week in the deepening crisis over the accusations, including Canada’s allegation that t he diplomats were linked to the June 2023 killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

The Nijjar killing has soured ties for more than a year, and despite Canada’s assertion that it has forwarded evidence of its allegations to Indian authorities, the Indian government continues to deny it has seen any.

Jaiswal said again on Thursday that Canada has provided no evidence of its allegations surrounding attacks on Sikh activists, contradicting Trudeau’s statements this week that his country’s investigators have privately shared information with Indian