India has strongly rejected allegations by Canada’s PM Justin Trudeau that it had any role in the death of a Canadian Sikh leader.
On Monday, Mr Trudeau accused India of involvement in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar who was shot dead outside a Sikh temple on 18 June in Canada.
He said Canadian intelligence was looking at “credible allegations” linking the death and the Indian state.
But On Tuesday, India expelled a top Canadian diplomat as the row worsened.
That followed Canada’s expulsion of Indian diplomat Pavan Kumar Rai over the case.
Nijjar, 45, was shot dead in his vehicle by two masked gunmen on a mid-June evening in the busy car park of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, a city about 30km (18 miles) east of Vancouver.
A prominent Sikh leader in the western-most province of British Columbia, he publicly campaigned for Khalistan – the creation of an independent Sikh homeland in the Punjab region of India. His supporters have said that he was a target of threats in the past because of his activism.
There are an estimated 1.4 to 1.8 million Canadians of Indian origin and the country has the largest population of Sikhs outside Punjab.
Trudeau said in parliament on Monday that he had raised the issue of Nijjar’s killing with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the recent G20 summit in Delhi
