Ottawa, Canada

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has claimed that he spared India the blushes after his government did not hurl the accusations regarding the killing of Khalistani terrorist, Hardeep Singh Nijjar when New Delhi was hosting the G20 Summit last year. 

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Testifying before the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions in Ottawa on Wednesday (Oct 16), Trudeau made the rather boastful remark, despite earlier conceding that his government did not have hard proof to back its accusations. 

“We had the opportunity of making it a very uncomfortable summit for India if we went public with these allegations ahead of time,” Trudeau said. 

“We chose not to. We chose to continue to work behind the scenes to try to get India to cooperate with us,” he added. 

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The Liberal leader added that after the G20 summit, he met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and highlighted that Ottawa knew New Delhi was involved and raised serious concerns about it.

Watch | India-Canada Row: India Accuses Trudeau Of Damaging Ties

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No hard proof

During the testimony, Trudeau conceded that Canada had no hard proof before publicly accusing India of killing Nijjar and only provided intelligence.

"Their [Indian government] ask was how much do you know? Give us the evidence you have on this and our response was well...it's within your security agencies, you should be looking into how much they know. You should be engaging," said Trudeau. 

"At that point, it was primarily intelligence and not hard evidentiary proof. So we said, let's work together and look into your security services and maybe we can get that out," he added. 

Also read | Nijjar killing row: India blasts Trudeau’s ‘cavalier attitude’ following ‘no hard proof’ remark

The Canadian PM also added that Indian diplomats were collecting information on Canadians and passing it to Indian gangster Lawrence Bishnoi.  

Soon after his testimony went viral, the Indian foreign affairs ministry released a late-night statement and blasted the Canadian PM and his government for their cavalier attitude and inability to produce evidence. 

"What we have heard today only confirms what we have been saying consistently all along — Canada has presented us (India) no evidence whatsoever in support of the serious allegations that it has chosen to level against India and Indian diplomats," read the statement. 

New Delhi also held Trudeau responsible for severed diplomatic ties between the two nations. Following the Canadian PM’s allegations, India withdrew its top six diplomats from Ottawa and expelled the same number of Canadian diplomats from New Delhi.

(With inputs from agencies)