NEW DELHI: India has asked Canada to recall 41 ‘excess’ diplomats stationed in the country by October 10, British business daily Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
India “threatened to revoke the diplomatic immunity of diplomats who remain after that date”, it said. Canada currently has 62 personnel in India and this staff strength is sought to be reduced to 21, it added.
However, there has been no official confirmation from either side on the number of diplomats asked to leave before the deadline.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has neither confirmed nor denied the report. “When India had already made it clear that they wanted to have diplomatic parity with Canada, the Canadian diplomats should have left by now,” said a source.
Last month, India had asked Canada to downsize its diplomatic staff strength in the country so as to have parity with the Indian mission in Canada. “There needs to be parity in strength and rank equivalence in our mutual diplomatic presence. There are many more in numbers and we have noticed that they interfere a lot in our internal matters,” MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi had said on September 21, the day India suspended its visa services in Canada.
The diplomatic row between the two countries erupted after Trudeau recently blamed New Delhi for the killing of a Canada-based Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was shot dead by gunmen on June 18 in British Columbia. India had designated him a terrorist in 2020.
Trudeau made the controversial statement in Canada’s Parliament, suggesting India’s role in the killing of Najjar. This was followed up with the expulsion of an Indian diplomat. India rejected the allegations as ‘absurd’ and ‘motivated’ and expelled a senior Canadian diplomat in a tit-for-tat move, which was followed up with stopping visa services for Canadians to visit India.