The United States has charged a former Indian intelligence officer with orchestrating a murder-for-hire plan against a prominent Sikh separatist in New York City last year. Late on Thursday, an unsealed US indictment identified Vikash Yadav as the Indian agent suspected of orchestrating the death of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a US citizen, in New York.
Pannun, a lawyer and activist, is a well-known firebrand leader of the Khalistan movement, which advocates for an independent state for Sikhs in Punjab but is prohibited in India. Pannun had been declared a terrorist by the Indian government. Pannun described the assassination attempt as a “blatant case of India’s transnational terrorism, which has become a challenge to America’s sovereignty and a threat to freedom of speech and democracy”. Last year, federal prosecutors revealed shocking facts about the intended murder-for-hire scheme against Pannun. In the first charge, federal prosecutors said that an Indian government agent, previously known as CC1, but now identified as Yadav, had hired an Indian middleman to help him arrange for Pannun’s murder.
However, the assassin recruited for the task turned out to be an undercover US agent, foiling the plan.The middleman, Nikhil Gupta, was later captured in the Czech Republic and extradited back to the United States, where he pleaded not guilty.
According to the new accusation, Yadav was working directly under India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office when the murder was plotted. “Yadav was employed by the government of India’s Cabinet Secretariat, which is a part of the Indian Prime Minister’s Office,” according to the arrest report.
It also specifically describes Yadav’s former duties in the Indian government, particularly in the police. “Yadav is a citizen and resident of India, and he directed the plot to assassinate the Victim from India,” according to the charge. Anne Milgram of the US Drug Enforcement Administration stated, “We charge that Yadav, an employee of the Indian government, used his status of power and access to confidential information to direct the alleged murder of an outspoken critic of the Indian government here on US soil.”
The indictment was unsealed just days after Canada expelled six Indian diplomats over their alleged involvement in the 2023 murder of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil. India also ordered the expulsion of Canadian diplomats and refutes Canada’s charges. The United States had urged India to investigate the US Justice Department’s claim that an Indian intelligence official oversaw efforts to murder Pannun. The claims have put Washington and Ottawa’s relations with India to the test, as the West frequently sees India as a counterbalance to China. India has labelled Sikh separatists as “terrorists” and a menace to its security. Sikh separatists want to carve out an independent homeland called Khalistan from India. During the 1980s and 1990s, India saw an insurgency that claimed the lives of tens of thousands.
