External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Monday hit out at Canada for its "double standards" as the ties between New Delhi and Ottawa came under severe strain over the killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil last year.
"Double standards is a very mild word for it," Jaishankar said while explaining how Canada treats other diplomats and the "licence" their diplomats try to use while in India.
Last week, New Delhi expelled Canadian Charge d'Affaires Stewart Wheeler and five other diplomats following Ottawa's fresh allegations of the Indian government's involvement in Nijjar's killing in British Columbia.
India also recalled its high commissioner and five more diplomats, who are on their way back to India. The Canadian government had said the Indian diplomats were expelled from the country.
"I think there are some very specific issues. Canada asked us to subject our high commissioner to a police inquiry and we chose to withdraw the high commissioner and diplomats," Jaishankar said at the NDTV World Summit.
"They seem to have a problem if Indian diplomats are even trying to make efforts to find out what is happening in Canada on matters which directly pertain to their welfare and security.
"But look what happens in India. Canadian diplomats have no problem going around collecting information on our military, police, profiling people, targeting people to be stopped in Canada," he said.
"So apparently, the licence that they give themselves is totally different from the kind of restrictions that they impose on diplomats in Canada. When we tell them you have people openly threatening leaders of India, diplomats of India, their answer is freedom of speech," Jaishankar added.
The bilateral ties nosedived after Canada linked Indian High Commissioner Sanjay Verma and other diplomats to Nijjar's killing.
New Delhi has strongly rejected all the allegations made by Ottawa in connection to the case relating to the killing of Nijjar, who was a designated terrorist in India.
"If you threaten the Indian high commissioner, he is supposed to accept it as freedom of speech, but if an Indian journalist says the Canadian high commissioner walked out of the South Block looking very grumpy, it is apparently foreign interference," Jaishankar said.
Asked about certain pro-Khalistani elements openly issuing threats to India's airlines, diplomats and high commission, he said, "These threats are cleverly worded." "They (the Canadian government) call this freedom of speech. But my question to them is -- if you receive these threats, would you take them lightly?" the minister asked.
"If it was your airline being threatened, your Parliament, your diplomats.... This is exactly the kind of problem with which we started this conversation," he said.
The external affairs minister said India is having a problem with a segment of Canadian politics.
"We are having a problem with a segment of politics in Canada," he said.
"I think people-to-people relations, we would like to maintain. I think we need to narrow this down and define this problem for what it is," Jaishankar added.
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