NEW DELHI: India on Saturday denied home minister Amit Shah had plotted to target Sikh activists on Canadian soil and said it had officially rebuked Ottawa over the “absurd and baseless” allegation.

Canada is home to the largest Sikh community outside of India, and includes activists for “Khalistan”, a fringe separatist movement seeking an independent state for the religious minority carved out of Indian territory.

Ottawa has previously accused India of orchestrating the 2023 killing in Vancouver of 45-year-old naturalised Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Khalistan campaigner. But this week, Canadian officials said Ottawa had traced a broader campaign targeting Canadian Sikh activists to the highest levels of India’s government, implicating Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s powerful right-hand man.

“The Government of India protests in the strongest terms to the absurd and baseless references made to the Union Home Minister of India,” foreign ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal told reporters.

Jaiswal said that a Canadian diplomat had been summoned and issued a letter to formally protest the accusation against Shah.

Testifying before a Canadian parliamentary committee this week, deputy foreign ministry David Morrison confirmed a Washington Post story implicating Shah in a plot to intimidate and even kill Canadian Sikhs.

Published in Dawn, November 3rd, 2024