Montreal, Canada – India's High Commissioner to Canada has rejected allegations of involvement in the 2023 assassination of a prominent Sikh separatist leader in the country, calling the Canadian government “politically motivated” in its allegations.

In an interview with Canadian broadcaster CTV News on Sunday, Sanjay Kumar Verma was asked whether he had anything to do with the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

“Nothing at all, no evidence presented, politically motivated,” he replied.

The interview comes just days after Canadian police said they had found evidence that Indian government agents were “involved in serious criminal activity in Canada,” including links “to homicides and violence.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government announced Monday that it would expel six Indian diplomats and consular officials – including Verma – after identifying them as “persons of interest” in Nijjar's killing.

Nijjar, a Canadian citizen, was fatally shot in June 2023 outside a Sikh temple where he served as president in Canada's westernmost province of British Columbia.

He was a leading advocate of the so-called Khalistan movement, a Sikh campaign for a sovereign state in India's Punjab region that India sees as a threat to its national security.

His killing sent shockwaves across Canada and relations between New Delhi and Ottawa reached new lows after the Canadian government said in September last year it was investigating whether Indian government agents were involved.

India has denied the allegations, calling them “absurd insinuations” and called on Canada to provide evidence to support its claims.

On Monday, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said it had presented evidence directly to Indian government officials and “called for their cooperation in curbing the violence and urged our law enforcement agencies to work together to address these issues.”

During the interview with CTV News on Sunday, Verma – the Indian high commissioner to Canada – repeatedly said he had not been presented with any evidence.

Verma said India was “committed not to carry out extrajudicial killings in any territory”.

He also said he never directed or forced individuals to collect information about pro-Khalistan activists in Canada. “As High Commissioner of India, I have never done anything like this,” he told CTV News.

“Do we want to know what pro-Khalistani elements are doing in Canada? Yes, we do. This is my national interest. That's my whole concern about Canada trying to tear up Indian territory.

“If Canadian politicians are so inexperienced that they don't want me to know what my enemies are doing here, I'm sorry – then they don't know what international relations is about,” Verma said, emphasizing that When gathering information about something, “everything was obvious.”

“We read the newspapers, we read what they say,” he added.

But members of the Sikh community in Canada – the world's largest Sikh diaspora at around 770,000 people – say they have faced threats for decades. They have accused the Indian government of trying to silence them.

“For 40 years, our community has worked to expose foreign interference from India,” Moninder Singh, a Nijjar employee in British Columbia, told Al Jazeera last year.

Sikh advocates in the United States have also been threatened, and last week the U.S. Department of Justice filed charges against an Indian government official who was allegedly involved in a failed plot to assassinate a prominent advocate of Sikh separatism in New York.

US authorities filed murder-for-hire and money laundering charges against Vikash Yadav for his alleged involvement in the conspiracy to murder Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.

Pannun, a U.S. citizen, is legal counsel for the group Sikhs for Justice and a vocal supporter of the Khalistan movement.

“The defendant (Yadav), an Indian government employee, allegedly conspired with a criminal accomplice and attempted to murder a U.S. citizen on American soil for exercising his First Amendment rights,” FBI Director said Christopher Wray in a statement.

Sikhs for Justice said the US indictment shows Washington's “commitment … to protecting the lives, liberty and freedom of expression of US citizens at home and abroad.”

India's foreign ministry said Yadav was no longer employed by the government.