Amid escalating tensions between India and Canada, the Indian Army said that these issues “don’t impact us” and that India’s “diplomatic approach, military records with Canada continue”.
The Indian Army’s Additional Director General (Strategic Planning) Major General Abhinaya Rai while addressing the curtain raiser event on the scheduled Indo-Pacific Army Chiefs conference said that Canada’s military delegation will be coming for the conference.
Abhinaya Rai said, “The Canadian chief is coming here. His delegation is coming here. When we look at the relationship with some neighbours of ours, where we may have had a standoff but we continue to engage them at all levels be it military of diplomatic levels. I am directly referring to China here. Our diplomatic efforts as well as the military efforts with even Canada continue to be there.”
The Indo-Pacific Armies Chiefs Conference is slated to be held at the Manekshaw Centre in Delhi Cantonment on September 26 and 27 where the Canadian Army will be represented by its deputy commander Major General Peter Scott.
Chief-of-Staff of the US Army, General James C McConville, along with his delegation, will also be present for the three events that he will co-host along with Chief of Indian Army Staff General Manoj Pande.
Notably, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Sikh leader in British Columbia, was fatally shot in his truck in June by two masked gunmen outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, BC. His assassination shocked and angered the sizable Sikh community in Canada, which numbers in the hundreds of thousands. India had previously designated Nijjar as a terrorist threat, associating him with a Sikh separatist movement.
Canada expelled a high-ranking Indian diplomat from the country following "credible allegations" of the Indian government's involvement in the assassination of Nijjar. Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister, Mélanie Joly, confirmed the expulsion of the Indian diplomat and revealed that the individual in question is the head of the Indian intelligence agency in Canada. Joly emphasized that Canada is committed to uncovering the truth behind Nijjar's assassination.
