New Delhi, Oct 24 (IANS): Senior diplomat and India's recalled High Commissioner, Sanjay Kumar Verma on Thursday advised Indian students in Canada to remain "aware of their surroundings" and resist radicalisation attempts by Khalistani terrorists and extremists in the country.
Last week, India had decided to withdraw High Commissioner Verma and "other targeted diplomats and officials" from Canada following Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's continued "hostility" towards India.
Ottawa had insisted that the Indian High Commissioner and other diplomats are "persons of interest" in a matter related to the murder investigation of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
The move was termed as "preposterous imputations" by New Delhi.
"At this time in Canada there is a threat from Khalistani terrorists and extremists to the larger Indian community, including outreach to students. Given the condition of the country's economy, there are few jobs so students are offered money and food and this is how Khalistani terrorists influence them with their nefarious plans," Verma told NDTV in an interview after returning to India.
He revealed that some students are also persuaded to hold protests outside the Indian diplomatic buildings in Canada and post their photographs and videos of insulting the Indian flag and raising anti-India slogans on social media platforms.
"Then they are told to go and seek asylum because their version will be, 'If I go back to India now, I will be punished...' and there have been cases of such students being given asylum," he said.
Verma, one of India's senior-most serving diplomats with a distinguished career spanning 36 years, stated that several "negative influences" are pushing Indian students in Canada towards a wrong direction.
He also urged the parents of students in Canada to "please talk to them regularly and try to understand" their situation, and to guide them away from "unwise" choices.
In what was his first interview since returning home, Verma reiterated that not a "shred of evidence" was shared with him by the Canadian authorities regarding the so-called ongoing investigation.
He said that it was instead India which had shared with the Trudeau government a detailed evidence of radical and extremist groups operating on Canadian soil though no action was taken on it.
"Besides the evidence shared with Canada, New Delhi, through its High Commission, also repeatedly sent extradition requests for 26 radical elements and gangsters, but nothing was done about it.
"One law applies to you and another law applies to me, that doesn't work in the world anymore. In the past, countries of the Global South would do as was told to them by the developed nations, but gone are those days," he said while highlighting the "double standards" of the Trudeau government.