India has stopped providing visa services to Canadian nationals as of this Thursday, according to BLS International, a provider of visa consulting services.
India suspends visa Canadian citizens: On Monday, Canada announced its active pursuit of credible allegations that a Sikh separatist leader was kill in British Columbia in June, and it is investigating the potential involvement of Indian government agents.
The administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has categorically denied Canada’s claims of Indian agents’ involvement in the murder.
According to BLS International, the Indian mission’s warning regarding the suspension of visa services “until further notice” cited “operational reasons.”
Unidentified persons shot and killed Sukhdool Singh, another leader of the Sikh separatist movement, in Winnipeg, Canada, on Wednesday.
Singh, who had fled from Punjab, India, to Canada in 2017, sustained approximately 15 gunshot wounds. Sukhdool Singh originated in the Moga district of Punjab.
After Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused in parliament that India had a hand in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil, ties between India and Canada may be at an all-time low at the time of Singh’s murder.
According to the Khalistan Extremism Monitor of the independent Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi, Nijjar was born in 1977 in the Jalandhar area of the northern Indian state of Punjab and migrated to Canada in 1997, where he worked as a plumber.
Hardeep Singh Nijjar: who was he?
India’s counter-terrorism agency, the National Investigation Agency, has stated that he had previous affiliations with the Sikh separatist organization Babbar Khalsa International (BKI). New Delhi has accused Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of funding BKI, which it has designated as a “terrorist organization.” Islamabad refutes this accusation.
According to a 2020 Indian government statement, Nijjar was later appointe as the chief of the militant organization Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF), where he was “actively involve in operationalizing, networking, training, and financing” its members.
New Delhi formally labeled him a “terrorist” in the same statement, accusing him of “exhorting seditionary and insurrectionary imputations” and “attempting to create disharmony among different communities” in the nation.
Nijjar was a well-known figure and a powerful advocate for those who demanded the creation of a so-called independent Sikh state of Khalistan.
Further, He was chosen to lead the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurudwara in Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver, where he resided. At the time of his passing, he was in that position.
However, On the evening of June 18, Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot and killed outside the same gurudwara.
Following his assassination, hundreds of people demonstrated in front of the Indian consulate in Vancouver, claiming that foreign agents were responsible for his passing, according to local media at the time.