Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada mentioned on Monday that “agents of the government of India” carried out the assassination of a Sikh group chief in British Columbia in June, an explosive allegation that can possible additional bitter relations between the 2 nations.

Speaking within the House of Commons, Mr. Trudeau mentioned that he had raised India’s involvement within the shooting of Hardeep Singh Nijjar straight with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the Group of 20 summit assembly earlier this month “in no uncertain terms.” He mentioned the allegation was based mostly on intelligence gathered by the Canadian authorities.

“Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty,” Mr. Trudeau informed lawmakers. He mentioned Canada would strain India to cooperate with the investigation into the killing of Mr. Nijjar, who advocated Sikh separatism.

Mélanie Joly, the international minister, later introduced that Canada had expelled an Indian diplomat whom she described as the pinnacle of India’s intelligence company in Canada.

Mr. Trudeau mentioned many Canadians of Indian origin — they make up about 4 p.c of the inhabitants — had been angered by the killing and in some instances feared for his or her private security. There are about 1.4 million Canadians of Indian heritage, lots of whom are Sikhs, and their quantity contains Jagmeet Singh, the chief of the opposition New Democratic Party, which is maintaining Mr. Trudeau’s minority authorities in energy. Singh is a typical surname and center title in Punjab.

The allegation that India’s authorities was concerned in a political killing in Canada is prone to additional corrode relations between the 2 international locations. Earlier this month, Canada suspended negotiations on a commerce take care of India that had been scheduled to have been concluded this yr — it now seems due to the assassination allegations. During the G20, Mr. Modi excluded Mr. Trudeau from the record of leaders with whom he held formal bilateral conferences.

The Indian diplomatic mission in Ottawa didn’t reply to requests for remark.

Mr. Nijjar, 45, was shot close to a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Columbia. At a information convention in June, investigators from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police mentioned he had been ambushed by masked males, however wouldn’t say whether or not the assault appeared politically motivated.

Mr. Nijjar was identified for his advocacy of the creation of an impartial Sikh nation, Khalistan, that would come with elements of India’s Punjab state, and India had declared him a needed terrorist.

Citing the police investigation, neither Ms. Joly nor Dominic LeBlanc, the minister of public security, supplied any particulars about Indian involvement within the killing. But Mr. LeBlanc mentioned that Jody Thomas, Mr. Trudeau’s nationwide safety adviser, in addition to the pinnacle of Canada’s intelligence service, had traveled over the previous few weeks “to confront the Indian intelligence agencies with these allegations.”

It was unclear from the 2 minister’s remarks how forthcoming the Indian authorities has been or what cooperation, if any, it has supplied.

Mr. Joly mentioned she deliberate to debate India’s actions throughout conferences with Canada’s allies after she travels to New York this week for the United Nations General Assembly.

The announcement got here on the identical day {that a} choose opened a public inquiry into interference by international governments. It was prompted by allegations that China is meddling in Canadian politics, however Mr. LeBlanc mentioned that reviewing India’s actions are inside the inquiry’s mandate. “Obviously these allegations are at a much more serious level,” he mentioned.

Mr. Nijjar was vocal in regards to the threats to his life, which had been shared with Canada’s spy company, the World Sikh Organization of Canada, a nonprofit, mentioned in a press release.

“If these allegations are true, they represent an outrageous affront to Canada’s sovereignty,” mentioned Pierre Poilievre, chief of the Conservative Party. “Our citizens must be safe from extrajudicial killings of all kinds, most of all from foreign governments.”

Mr. Singh, the New Democratic Party chief, broke with protocol to handle the House of Commons in Punjabi as properly English and mentioned he had spoken with Mr. Nijjar’s son. “I could hear the pain of that loss in his voice,” Mr. Singh mentioned. “I can only imagine how much more painful it is going to be knowing this potential connection.”

Rumors about doable retribution by India in opposition to these crucial of its authorities have stoked worry inside the Sikh expatriate group and discouraged many from returning to that nation, Mr. Singh mentioned. But Canada, he mentioned, had been seen as “a beacon of safety.”

“That safety and security that so many Canadians feel has now been rocked,” he mentioned.

Sikhs are a comparatively small non secular group, with about 25 million adherents worldwide, most of them in India.

A violent Sikh insurgency that took form in India within the Eighties killed plenty of authorities officers. The authorities responded with widespread human rights abuses, together with torture and extrajudicial killings, according to human rights groups.

In 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi despatched the navy to storm the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the holiest website in Sikhism, which had been fortified by closely armed Sikh militants. The authorities mentioned a whole lot of individuals had been killed within the conflict, however others put the dying toll within the hundreds.

In retaliation, two of the prime minister’s Sikh physique guards assassinated her, prompting riots during which hundreds of Sikhs had been killed.

In 1985 a bomb exploded on an Air India flight from Toronto to London, killing all 329 folks on board. It stays Canada’s deadliest terrorist assault and worst mass homicide.

After a chronic investigation and trial, two Sikh separatists from British Columbia were acquitted in 2005 of homicide and conspiracy in that explosion in addition to a second blast that killed two baggage handlers in Japan. Many witnesses had both died — some had been murdered — or apparently been intimidated out of testifying. Wiretaps by Canada’s intelligence company had been erased earlier than they might be used as proof and bodily proof was destroyed within the blast.

A 3rd Sikh man was discovered responsible of manslaughter for his position in making the bombs and, later, of perjury on the homicide trial.

About a yr in the past, Ripudaman Singh Malik, one of many males acquitted in 2005, was shot to dying. Two males had been later arrested, however the killing rattled the Sikh group in British Columbia.