US charges Indian official in plot to assassinate Sikh leader in New York

NEW YORK, Oct 18 (APP/DNA):US prosecutors have charged an Indian intelligence agent, Vikash Yadav, of directing a foiled plot to assassinate a prominent Sikh leader, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun with US citizenship in New York, in a case that mirrors a 2023 killing in Canada, according to American media reports.

“The defendant, an Indian government employee, allegedly conspired with a criminal associate and attempted to assassinate a US citizen on American soil for exercising their First Amendment rights,” said Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray.

The criminal associate referred to here is a person called Nikhil Gupta who was arrested in the Czech Republic and extradited to the US to face trial in the alleged plot to assassinate Pannun, who is the general counsel of Sikhs for Justice, an advocacy group.

The FBI has also put Yadav on its list of wanted fugitives.

In a statement, Pannun called the plot to kill him a “blatant case of India’s transnational terrorism which has become a challenge to America’s sovereignty and threat to freedom of speech and democracy.”

The indictment said that Yadav called himself a “senior field officer” in the part of the Indian government that includes the Research and Analysis Wing, or RAW, its notorious intelligence agency.

Authorities say Yadav recruited an associate to find a U.S.-based criminal to arrange the murder of the Sikh leader. Last year, U.S. prosecutors charged the man accused of being Yadav’s henchman, Nikhil Gupta, and said Gupta had acted under instructions from an unidentified employee of the Indian government. Now, prosecutors have charged Yadav with orchestrating the plot.

The indictment came just days after the Canadian government expelled India’s top diplomat and five others, saying they were part of a criminal network.

Canada’s action stemmed from the killing last year in that country of a well-known Sikh activist, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was ambushed and shot in his pickup truck in Surrey, British Columbia.

The Canadian government has said the Indian government was behind that killing, just as U.S. authorities have blamed Indian authorities for the plot to kill the New York-based activist. The U.S. has shared intelligence with Canada as the two countries have investigated, officials said.

U.S. authorities say that after Nijjar’s killing, Yadav sent Gupta a news article about the New York target, which Yadav called a “priority now.” The person Gupta tried to enlist to carry out the killing, however, notified U.S. law enforcement, which set up a sting operation leading to the first indictment.

Gupta was arrested last year in the Czech Republic and extradited to the United States to face trial. He pleaded not guilty at a court appearance this summer. U.S. authorities believe Yadav is in India. Both men are now charged with murder for hire and conspiring to launder money.

The evidence detailed in the indictment paints a chilling portrait of a government aspiring to kill critics who live in North America, with Gupta suggesting at various points that the two targets were the start of a longer, bloodier campaign of killings of Sikh separatists living outside India.

“We have so many targets,” Gupta told the federal agent he had unwittingly hired to do the killing, the indictment said.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said this week that he had recently pressed India’s leader, Narendra Modi, for cooperation in the investigation.

“I impressed upon him that it needed to be taken very, very seriously,” Trudeau told reporters. That entreaty apparently did not succeed, and days later Canada expelled half a dozen Indian officials. In response, India expelled an equal number of Canadian diplomats.