India had at least 26 extradition requests pending with Canada, the South Asian nation’s foreign ministry said on Thursday, amid a diplomatic row between the two countries.
“These are over the last decade or more,” India’s foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters during a weekly media briefing.
Bilateral relations between the two nations have plunged to a new low this week after Ottawa linked India to the murder of a Sikh separatist leader in Canada.
In tit-for-tat moves, both countries expelled each others’ diplomats on Monday. Ottawa said it was expelling six Indian diplomats and consular officials “in relation to a targeted campaign against Canadian citizens by agents linked to the government of India.”
The government acted “to disrupt the chain of operations that go from Indian diplomats here in Canada to criminal organizations, to direct violent impacts on Canadians right across this country,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.
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