India has denied that Home Minister Amit Shah plotted to target Sikh activists on Canadian soil as it criticised Canada over the “absurd and baseless” allegations.
Shah, 60, oversees India’s internal security forces as home minister. He is viewed as the country’s second-most powerful person after Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
On Saturday, Randhir Jaiswal, spokesman of India’s Ministry of External Affairs, told journalists that New Delhi had summoned the representative of the Canadian High Commission on Friday and lodged a strong protest.
“The government of India protests in the strongest terms to the absurd and baseless references” about Shah, Jaiswal said, by Canada’s Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister David Morrison.
The Canadian minister told the national security committee that the government considers Shah the architect of the campaign against Sikh separatists in the country, which included the assassination of an activist.
The Canadian government has accused India of orchestrating the 2023 killing in Vancouver of 45-year-old naturalised Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Khalistan campaigner.
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