The US has charged a former Indian intelligence official for allegedly directing a foiled plot to murder pro-Khalistan separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on American soil, days after members of an Indian inquiry committee visited Washington for discussions on the matter.
The second indictment by the US justice department in the so-called “murder for hire”, which was ordered to be unsealed on Thursday, came close on the heels of India and the US announcing that an Indian official referred to only as “CC-1” in an earlier indictment had been sacked.
The US justice department said murder-for-hire and money laundering charges were against Vikash Yadav, 39, also known as Vikas and Amanat, in “connection with his role in directing a foiled plot to assassinate a US citizen in New York City”. While all the indictments didn’t name the target of the plot, US officials have acknowledged that he is Pannun, a leader of Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) already declared a terrorist by India.
There was no immediate response from Indian officials to the new indictment in the US.
Reports by HT and other media outlets had identified the official allegedly implicated in the plot as Vikram Yadav, a Central Reserve Police Force officer who was seconded to the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the external intelligence agency. It couldn’t immediately be ascertained whether Vikram Yadav and Vikash Yadav were the same person.
US prosecutors alleged ‘CC-1’ directed Nikhil Gupta to implement the plot
In an earlier indictment filed last November, US prosecutors had alleged that CC-1 had directed Indian national Nikhil Gupta to implement the plot. Gupta was arrested in the Czech Republic and extradited to the US earlier this year.
“As alleged in the second superseding indictment and other public court documents, in 2023, Yadav, working together with others, including Gupta, in India, and elsewhere, directed a plot to assassinate on US soil an attorney and political activist who is a US citizen of Indian origin residing in New York City (the victim),” the US justice department said in a statement.
“The victim has publicly called for some or all of Punjab to secede from India and establish a Sikh sovereign state called Khalistan, and the Indian government has banned the victim and his separatist organisation from India,” it said.
While confirming the removal of an official who figured in the earlier indictment by US prosecutors, external affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said on Thursday that two members of the high-level inquiry committee set up by India to examine information provided by the US regarding the foiled assassination plot had travelled to Washington for meetings and to share “several ideas on the inputs received”.
“We have taken these inputs very seriously and we have remained engaged with the US on this particular matter,” he said.
The US justice department statement also made a reference to the killing of pro-Khalistan separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar by unidentified men in the Canadian town of Surrey in June 2023 – an incident at the centre of a diplomatic row that has taken India-Canada ties to an all-time low. India has dismissed as “absurd” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s allegations last year that Indian government agents were linked to this killing.
After Canadian authorities sought to question the Indian envoy to Ottawa and five other officials as “persons of interest” in the Nijjar killing, New Delhi withdrew them and expelled six Canadian diplomats this week. India has also said Candian authorities haven’t provided any evidence so far to back up their accusations.
The US justice department statement said that Nijjar was an associate of the victim of the foiled plot in the US. “On or about June 19, 2023, the day after the Nijjar murder, Gupta told [an undercover officer] that Nijjar ‘was also the target’ and ‘we have so many targets.’ Gupta added that, in light of Nijjar’s murder, there was ‘now no need to wait’ on killing the victim,” the statement said.