Canadian police on Friday arrested three men over the killing of a Sikh separatist in Vancouver last year, whose death has been linked to the Indian government.
The murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar plunged Canada and India into a serious diplomatic crisis last fall after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested Indian government involvement in the homicide.
India dismissed the allegations as “absurd” and responded furiously, briefly curbing visas for Canadians and forcing Ottawa to withdraw diplomats.
Three Indian nationals, two aged 22 and one aged 28, were arrested on Friday morning and charged with first degree murder and conspiracy charges. They are accused of being the shooter, driver and lookout on the day Nijjar was killed.
They were arrested by police in Edmonton, in the neighboring province of Alberta, where they reside, and are being held behind bars pending further proceedings.
All had been in Canada for between three and five years, police said at a news conference on Friday.
Nijjar, who immigrated to Canada in 1997 and became a citizen in 2015, advocated for a separate Sikh state, known as Khalistan, carved out of India.
He was wanted by Indian authorities for alleged terrorism and conspiracy to commit murder.
On June 18, 2023, he was shot dead by masked assailants in the parking lot of the Sikh temple he lead in suburban Vancouver.
Trudeau announced several months later that Canada had “credible allegations” linking Indian intelligence to the killing and expelled an Indian official, spurring the diplomatic tit-for-tat with New Delhi.
In November, the US Justice Department charged an Indian citizen living in the Czech Republic with allegedly plotting a similar assassination attempt on American soil.
Prosecutors said in unsealed court documents that an Indian government official was also involved in the planning.
The shock allegations came after US President Joe Biden hosted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a rare state visit, as Washington seeks closer ties with India against growing China’s growing influence.
US intelligence agencies have assessed that the plot on American soil was approved by India’s top spy official at the time, Samant Goel, the Washington Post reported this week.
Canada is home to some 770,000 Sikhs, who make up about two percent of the country’s population, with a vocal minority calling for creating an independent state of Khalistan.
The Sikh separatist movement is largely finished within India, where security forces used deadly force to put down an insurgency in the state of Punjab in the 1980s.
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