India restarts suspended tourism, business e-visas for Canadians

NEW DELHI: India resumed issuing e-visas for Canadian tourists and business travellers on Wednesday two months after it suspended such services following a row over Ottawa’s accusation of possible Indian government involvement in the murder of a Canadian Sikh separatist leader.

Though the move is likely to ease tensions slightly, relations between the two countries are not expected to significantly improve in the near future.

“E-visa services to Canadian nationals have resumed,” an Indian government official aware of the decision said on the condition of anonymity, as he was not authorised to speak on the subject.

US thwarted plot to kill Sikh separatist in America

The official did not say if the decision will lead to a significant thaw in the relationship with Ottawa. India issues e-visas only for tourism and business for Canadian nationals.

It comes a month after New Delhi had resumed visas under four of the 13 categories that had been suspended in September.

Meanwhile, the United States authorities thwarted a plot to kill a Sikh separatist in the United States and issued a warning to India over concerns the government in New Delhi was involved, a senior Biden administration official said.

Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who says he is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada, was the target of the foiled plot, according to the senior administration official.

News of the incident comes two months after Canada said there were “credible” allegations linking Indian agents to the June murder of a Sikh separatist leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in a Vancouver suburb, something India has rejected.

Pannun, like Nijjar, is a proponent of a decades-long but now fringe demand to carve out an independent Sikh homeland from India called Khalistan, a plan New Delhi sees as a security threat due to a violent insurgency in the 1970s and 1980s.