Canada said Thursday it has withdrawn 41 diplomats from India amid a dispute over the murder of a Khalistani terrorist on Canadian soil. Foreign Minister Melanie Joly made the announcement, adding that Ottawa would not take retaliatory steps.

New Delhi had threatened to unilaterally revoke the diplomats’ official status by Friday unless they left, Joly said. This move, she said, was “unreasonable and unprecedented and clearly violated the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations”, according to a report in news agency Reuters.

“Given the implications of India’s actions on the safety of our diplomats, we have facilitated their safe departure from India,” she said.

The Minister further added, “If we allow the norm of diplomatic immunity to be broken, no diplomats anywhere on the planet would be safe. So, for this reason, we will not reciprocate.” According to the report, the 41 diplomats were accompanied by 42 dependents.

Tensions flared between India and Canada in September following Trudeau’s explosive allegations of a “potential” involvement of Indian agents in the killing of Khalistani extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on his country’s soil on June 18 in British Columbia. India had designated Nijjar as a terrorist in 2020.

India angrily rejected the allegations as “absurd” and “motivated” and expelled a senior Canadian diplomat in a tit-for-tat move to Ottawa’s expulsion of an Indian official over the case.

Amid the row, India had asked Ottawa to reduce its diplomatic presence in the country, arguing that there should be parity in strength and rank equivalence in the mutual diplomatic presence.

Notably, Canada is yet to provide any public evidence to support the claim about the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

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