Rejecting allegations, India called Canada's claims 'absurd' and 'motivated'. Canada has withdrawn 41 diplomats and their family members from India after it threatened to strip them of their diplomatic immunity by Friday, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly has said, amid a diplomatic row over the killing of a Sikh separatist.
MEA issued a statement, "We have seen the Statement by the Government of Canada on October 19 regarding Canadian diplomatic presence in India. The state of our bilateral relations, the much higher number of Canadian diplomats in India, and their continued interference in our internal affairs warrant a parity in mutual diplomatic presence in New Delhi and Ottawa."
"We have been engaged with the Canadian side on this over the last month in order to work out the details and modalities of its implementation. Our actions in implementing this parity are fully consistent with Article 11.1 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which states the following: "In the absence of specific agreement as to the size of the mission, the receiving State may require that the size of a mission be kept within limits considered by it to be reasonable and normal, having regard to circumstances and conditions in the receiving State and to the needs of the particular mission.”
"We reject any attempt to portray the implementation of parity as a violation of international norms," it added.
