A killing in a Canadian suburb has provoked an astonishing diplomatic breakdown between India and Canada. Hannah Ellis-Petersen reports
On 18 June last year Hardeep Singh Nijjar had spent the day in his local gurdwara or Sikh temple. The owner of a plumbing business in Surrey, Canada, Nijjar was a well-known figure in the area. But that evening, as he walked to his pick-up truck, he was shot and killed by a masked man.
His death prompted an extraordinary row between India and Canada. Nijjar was from India and the government there says he was a terrorist, involved in a bombing in which six people died. Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said there were credible allegations potentially linking the Indian state to the killing – and then later the Canadian police accused Indian diplomats of being involved in homicides, targeted assassinations, extortion, intimidation and coercion, mainly against members of the Canadian Sikh community.
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