As diplomats leave India, Canada amid row, Canadian envoy says: ‘Nijjar and Pannun part of one plot… let’s keep channels open’

India has rejected the Canadian accusations as “absurd and politically motivated” but has been more accommodating of US requests on information and action.

MacKay’s Deputy High Commissioner Stewart Wheeler has been expelled along with five Canadian diplomats. New Delhi recalled its High Commissioner and five more diplomats — the Canadian government said that they have been expelled. Indian High Commissioner Sanjay Verma will leave Ottawa Saturday evening (Ottawa time) and the remaining Indian diplomats have left Ottawa for India.

“The indictment and the charges in the United States just yesterday, and then the indictment that was released on November 29 of 2023 paint a really compelling and a rather detailed portrait of a single plot emanating from Delhi to kill multiple targets across North America, in Canada and the United States. So you put those two indictments together with the evidence that was released and the comments made by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on Monday, and you have a very clear picture, in fact, of what has been going on, for well over a year now,” MacKay told Canadian public broadcaster CBC News Saturday.

Calling it the Indian government’s “tremendous strategic error,” MacKay said: “I mean — to think that certain agents of the Indian government could contract violent crimes across North America and get away with it. That was a tremendous strategic error. I think there were tactical errors that led these people to get caught — I am referring now both to what has happened in Canada and in the United States.”

Claiming that “some very serious red lines have been crossed,” MacKay flagged what he called the reputational cost for the “Indian brand,” with the latest US indictment.

The US indictment alleged that Vikash Yadav, an Assistant Commandant with the CRPF, who was working with R&AW, was the key conspirator in the Pannun murder bid. He has been put on the FBI’s most wanted list. The Indian Express Saturday reported that less than three weeks after he was mentioned by US Department of Justice (DoJ) documents as “CC-1” (co-conspirator) last November, Yadav was arrested in an extortion case in Delhi by the Delhi Police Special Cell.

After four months in Tihar, Yadav was released on bail in April this year.

On Friday, Yadav was named by the DoJ and charged with “murder-for-hire” and money laundering in the alleged Pannun murder plot.

MacKay, considered one of the most senior diplomats in the Canadian foreign service, said, “I think Canada’s top priority at the moment, of course, is public safety on the streets in Canada…accountability for what has been happening in Canada. And I think it’s going to take — given the response so far from the Indian government — a very long time to dig out of this.”

He emphasized the need to keep “channels of communication open,” and for both governments to “try to minimize the damage that this diplomatic dispute could cause to the people-to-people and the business-to-business part of the relationship. That’s absolutely the Government of Canada’s view. And we hope that India will collaborate on that. There’s no reason for innocent parties to pay a price for this.”

On the Indian government’s response, he said that New Delhi’s position has been to deny, and to “vilify” Canada. “Repairing” diplomatic relations with Canada is not high on its agenda, he said, and it “will take a good long while before we get anything close (to) back to normal.”

On whether India’s response vis-à-vis Canada and the US has been different, because one is a middle-power and the other is a superpower, he said, “Yeah, well, that’s one way to summarize it.”

“But domestically, the Indian government has responded by vilifying Canada, denying all the charges. With respect to the United States, India can’t afford to take that approach. The US plays a very different role globally, has a very different relationship with India bilaterally…They simply can’t afford to do to the US what they think they can do to Canada.”

On questions over India’s democratic credentials, MacKay said it was important to step back and look at India in its “totality.”

“It is a very important country, world’s most populated country, world’s fifth largest economy, long-standing democracy since its independence…India is a rule of law country, and Canada and other countries want to have a better relationship with India. And I do think, in the long run, because we’re both democracies, because we’re both rule-of-law countries, strategically — our interests are aligned in the long run, but the kind of behaviour that we have seen from the government of India has crossed some very serious red lines. And Canada has therefore had to take the action that it has taken.”

On the way forward, he said: “…We need some accountability first, and then one day, I think we will return to a better and more collaborative relationship with the government of India.” He said that the dispute, “at the moment,” is between the two governments, and “there is no reason for innocent parties, the friends and family that want to travel between the two countries, businesses that are investing in, traveling between the two countries… to pay the price.”

He said, “But over the longer run, Canada does want a better relationship with India. There’s a lot that we can and should be doing together. But clearly some folks in Delhi made some very serious fundamental errors in their decision making over the last couple of years, and we need to see some accountability for that before things get normal again.”

On how long that could take, MacKay put the onus on India: “Well, I really couldn’t speculate on that. It’s really up to India, whether they are willing at some point to collaborate, to cooperate with Canada, and, and get to the bottom of this. So, the ball is in their court.”

A day earlier, Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly had said the remaining Indian diplomats in the country are “clearly on notice” after Canada named the Indian High Commissioner in Ottawa as a person of interest in the investigation into Nijjar’s assassination.