JOIN USIndia summons high commissioner of Canada over actions of separatist elements
India has conveyed its strong protest to Canada over protest by pro-Khalistani Sikhs targeting its diplomatic and consular missions in the North American nation over the past few days.
Ottawa’s envoy to New Delhi, Cameron Mackay, was on Saturday summoned to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), where the senior officials conveyed to him the “strong concerns” of India over “the actions of (the) separatist and extremist elements” against its diplomatic mission and the consulates in Canada.
Mackay was the third foreign diplomat to be summoned to the MEA headquarters in New Delhi over the protests by the pro-Khalistani Sikhs against the Government of India in the western nations. The British Deputy High Commissioner, Christina Scott, and the Chargé d'Affaires of the United States embassy in New Delhi, Elizabeth Jones, were summoned to the MEA earlier last week after protests against the High Commission of India in London and the Consulate General of India in San Francisco had turned violent.
“The Government of India sought an explanation on how such elements were allowed, in the presence of police, to breach the security of our diplomatic mission and consulates,” Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson of the MEA, stated in a press release issued on Sunday. The Government of Canada was reminded of its obligations under the Vienna Conventions and asked to arrest and prosecute the individuals who had already been identified as being involved in such acts, added the spokesperson.
A group of protestors – mostly Canadian Sikhs – staged a demonstration in front of the Consulate General of India in Vancouver on Saturday. They protested against the crackdown on radical preacher Amritpal Singh and his associates in Punjab in India. They waved the flags of Khalistan and raised slogans demanding its secession from India. They also raised slogans against India and the Government of India.
Earlier, a similar protest was staged in front of the High Commission of India in Ottawa.
India’s High Commissioner to Canada, Sanjay Kumar Verma, had avoided attending an event in the British Columbia province of the North American country after a violent protest by the Khalistanis on March 19. The protesters had also assaulted Indian-Canadian journalist Sameer Kaushal, who was at the venue to cover the visit of the High Commissioner of India to the province.
New Delhi on Saturday conveyed to Ottawa its expectation that the Government of Canada would take all steps required to ensure the safety of the diplomats and security of the diplomatic premises of India so that they could fulfil their normal diplomatic functions.
The issue of a police crackdown on Amritpal Singh and other Khalistanis in Punjab and Haryana of India had also been raised in the House of Commons, the lower chamber of Parliament of Canada, on March 23. Canada’s foreign minister, Melanie Jolie, had said that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government had been “closely following” the “evolving situation” in Punjab and looked forward to “a return to a more stable situation” in the northwestern state of India. Jolie had been responding to a question from Indian-Canadian parliamentarian Iqwinder S Gaheer.