India stopped processing visas for Canadian applicants on Thursday.
This comes four days after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claimed in a statement that there were "credible allegations" that India was involved in the shooting death of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June. The Indian government also called on Canada to decrease its diplomatic staff already in the country.
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“Important notice from Indian Mission: Due to operational reasons, with effect from 21 Sept. Indian visa services have been suspended till further notice,” a statement read from the BLS Indian Visa Application Center, the agency that processes visa requests for India in Canada.
Nijjar, 45, was killed in the parking lot of the Sikh temple where he presided as president in Surrey, Canada. He suffered multiple gunshot wounds and died there. Per the spokesperson for Sikhs For Justice, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, Nijjar had been warned by Canadian intelligence that his life was at risk in the days leading up to his murder.
India had designated Nijjar as a terrorist since 2020, claiming he was a member of a banned militant group in the country. Nijjar long denied the allegations, pointing to the plumbing business he owned in Canada. Meanwhile, India continued to make allegations against Nijjar, and placed a $16,000 reward for information leading to his arrest last year because of what the government claimed was his involvement in the attack of a Hindu priest in India.
Before he died, Nijjar was the face of a referendum to establish a Sikh homeland called Khalistan. It had the backing of Sikhs for Justice and was rallying support from the Sikh diaspora.
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This was the second murder in two years of a high-profile member of the Sikh community in Canada. In July of last year, Ripudaman Singh Malik, 75, was shot to death in his car in what police at the time referred to as a targeted attack. Malik had been previously acquitted of murder and conspiracy in the case of the two 1985 Air India bombings that killed 331 people.
Some 80,000 Canadians visited India in 2021, per India’s Bureau of Immigration. This is the fourth-largest demographic to visit as tourists.