Toronto: While pro-Khalistan protestors gathered at a distance, the first consular camp organised by an Indian mission in Canada this year went of without disruption at a gurdwara in British Columbia, on Saturday.
The camp was held at the Khalsa Diwan Society’s gurdwara in the city of Abbotsford. According to an earlier press release from India’s Consulate in Vancouver, applications for passport services, overseas citizen of India or OCI and attestation were to be accepted to the camp, which featured officials from the Vancouver Consulate.
Pro-Khalistan elements had given a call for a protest at the camp but were kept at a distance of 50 metre away from the gurdwara as it had obtained a court order in this regard last week, a spokesperson for the Society told the Hindustan Times.
The camp was organized at the request of the gurdwara as the local community sought a convenient venue for processing of documentation required for traveling to India, he added. The gurdwara will also host a life certificate camp for seniors later this year.
Just a few protestors gathered and shouted anti-India slogans.
The consular camps drew pro-Khalistan protestors last year and resulted in disruption of the services provided and even violence. Matters flared up when protesting radicals violently attacked the Hindu Sabha Mandir in Brampton in the Greater Toronto Area or GTA on November 3, leading to multiple arrests connected to that episode and its aftermath. Local police warned against holding similar such camps due to tense situation leading to multiple cancellations, including by three temples last month.
However, camps were successfully hosted by the Khalsa Diwan Society-run gurdwaras in Vancouver, which applied for and received a court order restraining protestors, as did the Lakshmi Narayan Mandir in Toronto.
The call for protests targeting the camp on Saturday were circulated online in a poster that also featured India’s Consul General in Vancouver Masakui Rungsung.
The posters and protestors referred to the killing of pro-Khalistan figure Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, British Columbia on June 18, 2023. Relations between India and Canada cratered three months later when then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated in the House of Commons that there were “credible allegations” of a potential link between Indian agents and the murder. India described those accusations as “absurd” and “motivated.”
The situation worsened in October 2024 after the Canadian Government accused six Indian diplomats and officials of being linked to violent criminal activity in the country. That led to India withdrawing the six from Canada on October 14 and expelling six Canadian diplomats.
