External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday that India will wait for the Canadian police to share information on the three Indian men that it has arrested and charged with the murder of Khalistani leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar. The Canadian police charged the three men on Friday over the murder of Nijjar saying they were probing whether the suspects had links to the Indian government.
Reacting to the development, Jaishankar said he has seen news of the arrests saying the suspects "apparently are Indians of some kind of gang background... we'll have to wait for the police to tell us," as per a Reuters report.
"But, as I said, one of our concerns which we have been telling them is that you know, they have allowed organised crime from India, specifically from Punjab, to operate in Canada," Jaishankar added.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Assistant Commissioner David Teboul announced the arrest of the three individuals on Saturday who have been charged with the killing of Nijjar.
"There are separate and distinct investigations ongoing into these matters, certainly not limited to the involvement of the people arrested today, and these efforts include investigating connections to the government of India," he said.
All three individuals, identified as Indian nationals — Karan Brar, Karanpreet Singh, and Kamalpreet Singh, all in their twenties — have resided in Canada as non-permanent residents for three to five years, said Superintendent Mandeep Mooker, leading the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team.
Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian citizen was shot dead last year on June 18 in Surrey, British Columbia, following which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau charged "agents" of the Government of India to be involved in the killing leading to sour ties between Ottawa and New Delhi.