Canada’s PM, Justin Trudeau, claims Indian diplomats are implicated in murders on Canadian soil

A gruelling week for Indian diplomacy began with an explosive Canadian press conference on Monday. Senior Canadian police officials accused Indian diplomats of being involved in “criminal” activities on Canadian soil, ranging from homicide and targeted assassinations to extortion, intimidation and coercion against members of the Canadian Sikh community.

They alleged that Indian diplomats – including the high commissioner himself – were implicated not only in the high profile killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh activist who was gunned down outside a gurdwara in a suburb of Vancouver last June, but also linked to other murders on Canadian soil. The diplomats had even worked with a gang run by India’s most notorious mob boss to get their dirty work done, they alleged.

Abrupt landing comes a day after flight from Mumbai to New York was diverted to Delhi after a false bomb threat

An Air India plane bound for Chicago has made an abrupt landing in the Arctic city of Iqaluit, after a false bomb threat. The emergency stop before sunrise on Tuesday, came less than a day after Canada and India expelled senior diplomats in a widening feud between the two countries.

The flight’s 211 crew and passengers disembarked at the Iqaluit airport some 300km (186 miles) north of the Arctic circle, the Royal Canadian Mounted police said in a news release. According to local media in Iqaluit, an “unspecified bomb threat from a person in India to Air India” was relayed to the flight’s captain.