(Reuters) – Canada’s police probe into the June homicide of a Sikh separatist in British Columbia has been broken by a high-level Canadian official’s public statements, India’s High Commissioner to Canada, Sanjay Kumar Verma, informed the Globe and Mail in an interview printed on Saturday.

Canada has alleged Indian involvement within the homicide in a Vancouver suburb of Canadian citizen and Sikh separatist chief Hardeep Singh Nijjar, whom India referred to as a “terrorist.” India denies the allegation.

“I would go a step further and say now the investigation has already been tainted,” Verma informed the newspaper. “A direction has come from someone at a high level to say India or Indian agents are behind it.”

Verma didn’t title the high-level official. On Sept. 18, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated: “Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India” and Nijjar’s dying.

The case has sparked a diplomatic row between the 2 nations. Canada withdrew 41 diplomats from India after New Delhi in September requested Ottawa to cut back its diplomatic presence following Canada’s allegations over Nijjar’s killing.

Verma stated that India has not been proven concrete proof by Canada or Canada’s allies that Indian brokers have been concerned in Nijjar’s killing.

He stated that regardless of the strained relations between the 2 nations, India wish to increase enterprise ties and return to the negotiating desk on a commerce deal.

In September, Canada paused talks on a proposed commerce treaty with India, simply three months after the 2 nations stated they aimed to seal an preliminary settlement this 12 months.

(Reporting by Gursimran Kaur in Bengaluru; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

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