Sanjay Kumar Verma, India’s high commissioner to Canada, has denied allegations of involvement in the 2023 killing of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, dismissing the accusations as “politically motivated.

Nijjar was fatally shot in his pickup truck in June 2023 after he left the Sikh temple he led in the city of Surrey, British Columbia. An Indian-born citizen of Canada, he owned a plumbing business and was a leader in a movement to create an independent Sikh homeland, which is banned in India.