Washington: On June 18, 2023, Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead in Canada. The same day, Vikash Yadav, a then serving government of India official, messaged Nikhil Gupta, his intermediary in an effort to nudge a hitman to assassinate Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, with both a video that showed Nijjar’s body and instructions to hasten the killing of Pannun after initially telling him to wait till the Indian Prime Minister had completed his planned visit to the US.
To be sure, these are just claims by Yadav, according to US authorities, and may have been exaggerated even if the conversations are accurately reproduced.
But in that assertion of the Department of Justice indictment lies the possibility of the Nijjar assassination and the Pannun assassination plot being intertwined. In that may also lie the basis of the intelligence sharing between US and Canada that propelled Ottawa to allege that government of India agents had a role in Nijjar’s killing. And in that lies what has become a triangular India-US-Canada espionage story that seems straight out of a badly made thriller.
But there was also a parallel story.
On June 12, Gupta had allegedly told his associate CS (who in reality was an informer to American law enforcement) that they had a “big target” in Canada. A few days later, Gupta told him that they would be needing “one good team in Canada” but that he was awaiting details.
On June 18, the day Nijjar was killed, according to the indictment, Yadav ostensibly sent Gupta “a video clip showing Nijjar’s bloody body slumped in his (Nijjar’s) vehicle”. Gupta allegedly forwarded this clip to CS and UC (the person identified as the hitman but in reality an undercover agent) minutes after receiving it from Yadav. A day later, Gupta allegedly told UC on an audio call that Nijjar was also a “target”, that they had many targets, but the good news now was that they had no need to wait. Gupta also told CS that Nijjar was the target in Canada he had earlier alluded to, but they sent a separate person for it, according to US authorities.
The instructions on timing changed. Gupta allegedly told CS that the UC should kill the victim as soon as possible. The indictment says that Gupta told CS that they had the “go-ahead to go anytime, even today, tomorrow — as early as possible” and that UC had to “finish the job”. According to the indictment, Gupta warned CS that Pannun would now be more careful since Nijjar was his associate, that they must not give him any chance, and if there were others with Pannun, they should all be “put down”.
On June 20, the day the PM landed in New York to kickstart his US visit, Yadav ostensibly sent a news article regarding Pannun to Gupta and told him, “It’s (a) priority now”. According to the indictment, Gupta called CS and told him to find the opportunity to kill Pannun and “do it quickly”, and that before June 29, they had to finish four jobs, one in New York (a reference to Pannun) and three in Canada.
The indictment just incorporates allegations and none of these has been proven in court.
But if this version is to be believed, a killing in Canada was used to prod hitmen to hasten a killing in New York, even at the cost of reversing instructions not to do it during the PM’s visit. If true at all, in this strange tale there remain more questions than answers about the nature and motivations of decision makers behind the plot.
