Actions of a few do not speak for an entire community or Canada, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said after a poster with pictures and names of Indian diplomats portraying them as “killers” of Khalistan Tiger Force chief Hardeep Singh Nijjar emerged.
The poster, tweeted by a former Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) correspondent, is about a rally planned by Khalistani elements in Toronto on July 8, which will culminate at the Indian High Commission.
“We know that the actions of a few do not speak for an entire community, or Canada,” Foreign Minister Joly said in a statement released on Twitter on Tuesday.
The poster features photos of India’s High Commissioner to Ottawa Sanjay Kumar Verma and Consul General in Toronto Apoorva Srivastava.
The words “Faces of Shaheed Nijjar’s Killers in Toronto” appear above the photos.
“Canada takes its obligations under the Vienna Conventions regarding the safety of diplomats very seriously. Canada remains in close contact with Indian officials in light of some of the promotional material circulating online regarding a protest planned for July 8th, which are unacceptable,” Joly said in her tweet.
According to local media reports, the Indian High Commission is expected to demarche the Justin Trudeau government and ask the federal government to take action against.
On Monday, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar commented on the ongoing controversy, saying it will hit bilateral relations.
“We have requested our partner countries like Canada, the US, the UK and Australia not to give space to the Khalistanis. This will affect our relations. We will raise this poster issue with the governments of these countries,” Jaishankar said.
Last month, he had said that Canada was giving space to Khalistani elements seems to be driven by vote bank politics.
“For us, how Canada has dealt with the Khalistani issue has been a long standing concern. Because frankly they seem to be driven by vote bank politics,” Jaishankar had said.
Nijjar, 45, was shot dead in an inter-gang warfare last month in Sikh dominated Surrey town.
He had links with the banned Sikhs For Justice (SFJ), led by a US-based designated terrorist.
The poster comes a month after Khalistanis, marking the 39th anniversary of Operation Blue Star, put up a tableau of Indira Gandhi with blood on her clothes and a poster that read: “Revenge of attack on Shri Darbar Sahib”.
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