India to partially resume visa services in Canada from 26 Oct

India has decided to partially resume visa services in Canada from October 26 onwards, a month after they were closed down amid deteriorating diplomatic ties between both the nations, the Indian High Commission in Ottawa said on Wednesday.

The services will resume for entry, business, medical, and conference visas, the high commission said in a statement. "Further decisions, as appropriate, would be intimated based on continuing evaluation of the situation," the statement added.

Diplomatic relations between India and Canada hit rock bottom after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last month accused India of being involved in the killing of Khalistani separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil in his country's Parliament.

Subsequently, both nations asked the other side to remove a diplomat each and earlier this month, New Delhi asked Canada to recall more than 40 of its diplomats posted in the country, to maintain diplomatic parity.

India said this was done owing to "repeated interference" in its internal affairs by Canada and to cut down a huge number of diplomatic presence of Canadian diplomats in the country.

Calling for immediate de-escalation in strained diplomatic relations between India and Canada, Ujjal Dosanjh, former premier of British Columbia and erstwhile Canadian minister of health, had stressed earlier this month that India's "muscular" foreign policy is essentially for domestic consumption and not granting visas to Canadian citizens hurts ordinary Indo-Canadians.

“You cannot give collective punishment just because a few have erred. It is people like us who suffer,” he told IANS.

On 20 October, Trudeau said India's decision to revoke the diplomatic immunity of 41 Canadian diplomats is a violation of the Vienna Convention and it should worry all countries, hours after New Delhi rejected Ottawa's attempt to portray the implementation of parity as a violation of international norms.