OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada worked ‘very closely’ with the United States on intelligence that Indian agents had been potentially involved in the murder of a Sikh man in British Columbia earlier this year, a senior Canadian government source said on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Monday that domestic intelligence agencies were actively pursuing credible allegations tying New Delhi’s agents to the shooting of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, 45, in British Columbia in June.
“We’ve been working with the U.S. very closely including on the public disclosure yesterday,” the source said. The evidence in Canada’s possession would be shared “in due course”, said the official who did not give a name due to the sensitivity of the information.
The issue that is straining diplomatic strains has also affected trade. Canada and India have paused talks on a proposed trade deal, and Canada postponed a trade mission it had planned for October.
A second Canadian source familiar with the situation said that both the pause in the trade talks and the delay of the trade mission were due to the concerns surrounding the murder of the Canadian.
(Reporting by Steve Scherer and David Ljunggren; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
