VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Canadian police said they arrested three suspects on Friday in the murder of a Sikh separatist leader last June, which became the center of a diplomatic dispute with India, and are investigating possible ties between those detained and the Indian government.
Three Indian nationals in their 20s identified as Kamalpreet Singh, Karan Brar and Karampreet Singh were arrested in Edmonton, Alberta on Friday morning for the murder of 45-year-old Hardeep Singh Nijjar by masked gunmen on the outskirts of Vancouver, police said.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sparked a diplomatic row with India in September when he said there were “credible allegations” of Indian involvement in Nijjar’s murder.
India has accused Nijjar of links to terrorism but has vehemently denied any involvement in the murder. In response to the allegations, India told Canada last year to remove 41 of its 62 diplomats in the country. Tensions remain, but have eased somewhat since then.
The three suspects lived in Canada as non-permanent residents, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superintendent Mandeep Mooker said Friday at a news conference in Toronto.
“We are investigating whether there is any connection with the government of India,” Mooker said, adding that it is an “ongoing investigation.”
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Assistant Commissioner David Teboul said Canadian authorities are talking to their counterparts in India. “I would characterize this collaboration as quite challenging,” he said. “It’s been very difficult.”
The three men were expected to be transported to British Columbia by Monday to face charges of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
Nijjar, a Canadian citizen born in India, was a plumber as well as a leader in what remains of a once-strong movement to create an independent Sikh homeland known as Khalistan. But he denied accusations of links to terrorism.
A bloody, decade-long Sikh insurgency rocked northern India in the 1970s and 1980s until it was crushed by a government crackdown in which thousands of people were killed, including prominent Sikh leaders.
The Khalistan movement has lost much of its political power, but still has supporters in the Indian state of Punjab as well as the sizable overseas Sikh diaspora. Although the active insurgency ended years ago, the Indian government has repeatedly warned that Sikh separatists were trying to return.
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