TORONTO (AP) — Canada's foreign minister said Friday that India's remaining diplomats in the country are “clearly concerned” not to endanger the lives of Canadians after New Delhi's top envoy to Canada was named as a person involved in the assassination of a Sikh activists were involved.

India's high commissioner was expelled on Monday along with five other diplomats, prompting Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly to compare India to Russia and say Canada's national police had linked Indian diplomats to killings, death threats and intimidation in Canada

Joly said Friday that Canada will not tolerate foreign diplomats putting the lives of Canadians at risk.

“We have never seen this in our history. This level of cross-border repression cannot take place on Canadian soil. We have seen it elsewhere in Europe. Russia has done this in Germany and the United Kingdom and we must stand firm on this issue,” she said in Montreal.

Asked whether more Indian diplomats will be expelled, Joly said: “They have clearly been notified. Six of them were expelled, including the High Commissioner in Ottawa. Others came mainly from Toronto and Vancouver and of course we do not tolerate diplomats who violate the Vienna Convention.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police went public this week with allegations that Indian diplomats targeted Sikh separatists in Canada by passing information about them to their government back home. They said senior Indian officials then passed that information to Indian organized crime groups, which targeted the activists, who are Canadian citizens, with drive-by shootings, extortion and even murder.

India, for its part, has rejected the Canadian allegations as absurd and its foreign ministry said it would expel Canada's acting high commissioner and five other diplomats in response.

Canada is not the only country to accuse Indian officials of plotting an attack on foreign soil. The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday announced criminal charges against an Indian government employee in connection with an alleged foiled plot to assassinate a Sikh separatist leader living in New York City.

In the case announced by the Justice Department, Vikash Yadav, who authorities say led the New York conspiracy from India, is charged with murder-for-hire in a planned killing that prosecutors say preceded a series of other politically motivated killings in the United States and Canada.

U.S. authorities said the killing of the American Sikh man came just days after the shooting of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian Sikh activist, outside a cultural center in Surrey, British Columbia, on June 18, 2023. The aim was to to kill at least four people in Canada and the United States by June 29, 2023, and more thereafter.

Nijjar's murder in Canada has strained India-Canada relations for more than a year, and although Canada claims it has forwarded evidence of its allegations to Indian authorities, the Indian government continues to deny having seen such evidence.

India has repeatedly criticized the Canadian government for being soft on supporters of the so-called Khalistan movement, which is banned in India but enjoys support in the Sikh diaspora, particularly in Canada.

Trudeau said Wednesday that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressed to him at a G20 summit in India last year that he wanted Canada to arrest people who had openly spoken out against the Indian government. Trudeau said he told Modi he believed the actions in Canada fell under freedom of expression.

Trudeau added that he had told Modi that his government would work with India on concerns about terrorism, incitement to hatred or anything that was unacceptable in Canada. But Trudeau also pointed out that while it is not Canadian government policy, advocating separatism is not illegal in Canada.

The RCMP said it found evidence of an intensified campaign against Canadians by Indian government agents.

Nijjar, 45, was fatally shot in his pickup truck last year. A Canadian citizen born in India, he owned a plumbing company and led what was left of a once-strong movement to create an independent Sikh homeland.

Four Indian nationals living in Canada have been charged with Nijjar's murder and are awaiting trial.