India suspends visa
India suspends visa services for Canadian citizens. BLS International, a visa consultancy service provider indicated this on its website on Thursday. The suspension comes in response to a notice from the Indian mission.
This decision follows Canada’s recent statement, wherein it expressed its active pursuit of credible allegations connecting Indian government agents to the murder of a Sikh leader.
In June this year, two armed men shot dead Hardeep Singh Nijjar outside a Sikh temple in Ottawa.
On Monday, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau blamed Indian government for the murder of the Sikh leader.
In response, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government expelled Canadian diplomat and today suspended visa services for Canadians.
BLS International has reported that the Indian mission has suspended visa services “until further notice” due to unspecified “operational reasons.”
Meanwhile, the United States also urged India to cooperate with Canadian authorities in the probe over murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Moreover, Sukhdool Singh, a Sikh separatist leader, was tragically gunned down by unidentified assailants in Winnipeg, Canada, on Wednesday. Singh, who had sought refuge in Canada from India’s Punjab region in 2017, was subjected to a brutal attack. He sustained approximately 15 gunshot wounds. He hailed from Punjab’s Moga district.
This incident occurs during a period of strained relations between India and Canada, two days after Trudeau’s assertion in parliament that India played a role in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil.
Nijjar, born in 1977 in India’s Jalandhar district in the northern state of Punjab, relocated to Canada in 1997. In Canada, he became a supporter and activist of Khalistan, a freedom movement of Indian Sikhs.
