(Bloomberg) -- India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his foreign minister condemned the attack on a Hindu temple in Canada this week amid a worsening in diplomatic tensions between the two countries.
Modi, who has mostly refrained from commenting publicly about the India-Canada situation, said the violence at a temple in Brampton, Ontaria on Nov. 3 was a “deliberate attack.” Separate disruptions outside an Indian consular camp were “appalling” and an attempt to intimidate India’s diplomats in the country, he said.
India’s Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar echoed those sentiments at a press conference in Canberra on Tuesday, saying the incidents were “deeply concerning.” He blamed Canada for giving “political space” to “extremist forces.”
Regional Canadian police in a social media post confirmed an incident at a “place of worship” in Brampton but didn’t release further details.
Diplomatic ties between the two countries have plummeted after Canada accused the Indian government last year of helping orchestrate the killing of a Sikh activist, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, on Canadian soil. Both countries have since ejected diplomats and recently, a top Canadian official alleged that Indian Home Minister Amit Shah allegedly authorized crimes in that country.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs in a statement Monday said that a temple in Brampton was attacked by “extremists and separatists” and asked the Canadian government to protect all places of worship. The Indian High Commission in Ottawa attributed the violence to “anti-India elements.”
--With assistance from Ben Westcott.
(Updates with comments from Indian minister in third paragraph.)
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