New Delhi: A fourth Indian national has been arrested and charged with the killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, Canadian police said Saturday. Amandeep Singh, 22, has been charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
Amandeep was already in custody of the Peel Regional Police on unrelated firearm charges, before being named one of the accused in the Nijjar case. According to the statement released by the police Saturday, Singh split his time in Canada between Brampton, Surrey and Abbotsford.
Last week, the Canadian Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT) arrested and charged three Indian nationals — Karan Brar, Kamalpreet Singh and Karanpreet Singh from the city of Edmonton, Alberta — in connection with Nijjar’s murder, and are probing their links to the Government of India.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said Thursday that Ottawa was yet to share any evidence with New Delhi of the allegations of links between Indian government agencies and the killing of Nijjar. MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal hit out at the Canadian authorities for giving political space to “separatists, extremists, and those advocating violence”.
Jaiswal added that the Indian government had raised the matter of individuals associated with “organised crime” with links to India being allowed entry and “residency” in Canada.
Nijjar, designated by India as a terrorist in 2021, was killed outside a gurdwara on 18 June, 2023, in Surrey, British Columbia. Three months later, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had informed the parliament that the concerned authorities were investigating “credible allegations” of links between agents of the Government of India and the killing of Nijjar.
The Indian government had rejected Trudeau’s allegations, calling them “absurd and motivated”. India had also called for diplomatic ‘parity’, which led to Canada removing 41 diplomats and their dependents from the country.
The diplomatic row sparked by Canada’s accusations saw the temporary closure of visa services by the Indian High Commission and consulates in the country over threats faced by its diplomats there.
The Canadian government also named and expelled an Indian diplomat, Pavan Kumar Rai, who its foreign ministry described as the chief of India’s Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) in the country. India then expelled a Canadian diplomat in response.
Nijjar’s name was part of a dossier shared by the then Chief Minister of Punjab, Captain Amarinder Singh, with Trudeau and then Canadian Defence Minister Harjit S. Sajjan, during their visit to India in 2018, reported The Globe and Mail, a Canadian newspaper, last week.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
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