All-time low Has India joined the countries that assassinate on foreign soil?

A gruelling week for Indian diplomacy began with an explosive press conference last Monday in which Canadian police officials accused Indian diplomats of being involved in "criminal" activities on Canadian soil, ranging from homicide and assassinations to extortion, intimidation and coercion against members of Canada's Sikh community.

- Hannah Ellis-Petersen

They alleged that Indian diplomats including the high commissioner - were implicated not only in the high-profile killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh activist who was gunned down outside a temple in a suburb of Vancouver last year, but also linked to other murders on Canadian soil.

The diplomats had even worked with a gang run by India's most notorious mob boss to get their dirty work done, they alleged.

Two days later the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, doubled down on the claims. Testifying before a public inquiry, he said Canada had clear intelligence linking Indian diplomats to "drive-by shootings, home invasions, violent extortion and even murder in and across Canada". India, added Trudeau, had made a "horrific mistake" in violating Canadian sovereignty.

It was a considerable escalation of a diplomatic row that has torpedoed India-Canada relations, beginning last year when Trudeau said there were "credible allegations" linking the Indian government to the killing of Nijjar - an accusation India rejected as "absurd". Since then, allegations of an Indian campaign of transnational violence and harassment have emerged not only in Canada but in the US, UK and Pakistan, where prominent Sikh activists say they have received threats to their lives.

Western officials and the Sikh community claim that what has been laid bare is a far-reaching policy of transnational repression targeting the Sikh diaspora by Narendra Modi's government.

India has repeatedly rejected all the allegations, emphasising that such killings are not government policy, and Canada's latest allegations were met with a flurry of outraged denials.

New Delhi described the claims as "preposterous imputations" and "ludicrous" statements. It has also accused Canada of providing a safe haven to Sikh terrorists.