“strong spy network in America still loyal to Modi’s ideology”, former Indian government official Vikash Yadav plot to murder a Sikh separatist in New York : REPORT

India ex-official charged in US murder plot had been arrested in Delhi attempted murder case

Shivam Patel
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By Shivam Patel

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – A former Indian government official charged in the United States this week for allegedly directing a foiled murder plot had been arrested in New Delhi in December in an attempted murder case, according to court records and a police officer.

The U.S. Justice Department unsealed the indictment of Vikash Yadav, 39, on Thursday, alleging he led a plot to murder a Sikh separatist in New York.

From May 2023, the U.S. indictment alleges, Yadav, described as an Indian government employee at the time, worked with others in India and abroad to direct a plot to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen.

Delhi Police had arrested Yadav on Dec. 18 in the Indian capital, the police officer told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Yadav and an associate were charged with attempted murder and other crimes, according to a filing in a Delhi district court.

Yadav’s lawyer, R.K. Handoo, called the Indian charges “fallacious”, adding there was “an international plot to bring shame on the government of India and my client”.

Handoo declined to comment further.

He and the police did not respond to questions on Yadav’s whereabouts. The Washington Post, citing American officials, reported on Thursday that Yadav was still in India and that the U.S. was expected to seek his extradition.

Yadav’s arrest was based on a complaint by an Indian businessman, who alleged Yadav and an associate kidnapped him in December, assaulted and robbed him, according to details in a Delhi district court order dated Feb. 23.

“The accused persons tortured and manhandled the complainant and demanded money in the name of gangster Lawrence Bishnoi,” said the Feb. 23 court order, summarising the complaint.

Bishnoi, in jail in India’s Gujarat state, is an organised crime gang leader, according to India’s National Investigation Agency. Bishnoi’s lawyer says he is contesting more than 40 cases on charges including murder and extortion, with many trials yet to begin.

Indian government agents were separately accused by Canada this week of having links to Bishnoi’s gang and running a campaign to target Indian dissidents in Canada. India’s government denies the allegations.

In Yadav’s Delhi case, the court order citing the complaint said: “The accused persons also brought bank cheque book from the cafe of the complainant and got his signature on blank cheques and later on dropped him near his car, threatening to remain silent.”

(Reporting by Shivam Patel in New Delhi)

Demonstrators beat effigy of India’s prime minister outside courthouse after hearing

LARRY NEUMEISTER

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NEW YORK (AP) — Demonstrators who blame the Indian government for a murder-for-hire scheme targeting a prominent Sikh separatist leader living in New York City beat an effigy of the country’s prime minister outside a Manhattan courthouse on Friday after a hearing for an man charged in the plot.

The demonstration by more than a dozen Sikhs came one day after a rewritten indictment in the case charged an Indian government employee in connection with the foiled plan. The India-based employee, Vikash Yadav, remains at large.

Across the street from the courthouse, the demonstrators put a shackled effigy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi inside a makeshift jail cell. Another cardboard likeness of Modi was pounded in the face and kicked around on the sidewalk.

Nikhil Gupta, who has previously charged, pleaded not guilty during the hearing, which alleges that Yadav recruited Gupta to orchestrate the assassination.

Gupta, 53, has been held without bail since he was extradited to the United States in June from the Czech Republic, where he was arrested in Prague in 2022.

U.S. authorities announced in November 2023 that the plot against Gurpatwant Singh Pannun had been thwarted that June after a sting led by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Pannun, 57, advocates for the creation of a sovereign Sikh state and is considered a terrorist by the Indian government.

Prosecutors say Yadav recruited Gupta, an associate, in May 2023 after Gupta described his involvement in international narcotics and weapons trafficking in various communications to Yadav and others.

Yadav directed Gupta to contact an individual whom Gupta believed to be a criminal associate to help him find a hitman, according to the indictment. It does not identify Pannun by name, only referencing him as the “victim.”

The man Gupta thought was a criminal associate was actually a DEA informant, the indictment says.

Yadav told Gupta that $150,000 could be offered for the killing, according to the document, and “the offer will go higher depending upon the quality of the work … and if it’s done as soon as possible.”

The indictment said Gupta also promised the informant that “they have more jobs, more jobs,” referring to more targeted killings, two to three a month.

Pannun, who did not attend Friday’s hearing, said in a phone interview afterward that the demonstrators surely focused their anger on Modi because “the directive to kill has come from the prime minister’s office.”

The indictment’s addition of charges against a single Indian government employee “is not going to stop Modi’s violent transnational repression,” Pannun said, adding that New Delhi continues to have a “strong spy network in America still loyal to Modi’s ideology.”

US charges ex-Indian intelligence official in foiled Sikh separatist murder plot

Kanishka Singh
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By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States has charged a former Indian intelligence officer for allegedly directing a foiled plot to murder a Sikh separatist and Indian critic in New York City, with the FBI warning against such a retaliation aimed at a U.S. resident.

An indictment of Vikash Yadav was ordered to be unsealed on Thursday. The U.S. Justice Department indictment mentioned Yadav as a former officer in India’s Research and Analysis Wing spy service.

Washington has alleged that Indian agents were involved in an attempted assassination plot against Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen.

“The FBI will not tolerate acts of violence or other efforts to retaliate against those residing in the U.S. for exercising their constitutionally protected rights,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement.

The indictment alleged that beginning in May 2023, Yadav, described as an employee of the Indian government at the time, worked together with others in India and abroad to direct a plot against Pannun. The indictment described Pannun as a political activist, a critic of the Indian government and an advocate for a separate homeland for Sikhs.

India has labeled Sikh separatists as “terrorists” and as threats to its security. Sikh separatists demand an independent homeland known as Khalistan to be carved out of India. An insurgency in India during the 1980s and 1990s killed tens of thousands.

Yadav, 39, was still in India and the United States was expected to seek his extradition, the Washington Post reported, citing American officials.

‘MURDER-FOR-HIRE’

The indictment said Yadav had hired an Indian national named Nikhil Gupta whom the U.S. Justice Department has previously charged with trying to arrange the murder of Pannun at the behest of the Indian intelligence official.

Yadav recruited Gupta “to orchestrate the assassination of the victim in the United States,” the indictment, filed in federal court in Manhattan, said.

Gupta traveled to Prague from India last June and was arrested by Czech authorities before being extradited to the U.S. where he pleaded not guilty in a court in June.

The indictment on Thursday charged Yadav with “murder-for-hire and money laundering.”

In a statement on Thursday, Pannun welcomed the indictment of Yadav, but described him as a “mid-tier soldier” who the Sikh separatist alleged was assigned by Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and then RAW Chief Samant Goel as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal to dismantle Sikh separatism.

INDIA-U.S. TALKS, CASE IN CANADA

An Indian government committee investigating Indian involvement in the foiled murder plot met with U.S. officials in Washington on Tuesday, a meeting that Washington described as productive.

Without giving further details, the U.S. State Department said on Wednesday that India informed the U.S. that “the individual who was named in the Justice Department indictment is no longer an employee of the Indian government.”

The United States had been pushing India to look into the U.S. Justice Department’s claim that an Indian intelligence official – now identified as Yadav – directed plans to assassinate Pannun.

The U.S. case is not the only instance of India’s alleged targeting of Sikh separatists on foreign soil.

Canada on Monday expelled Indian diplomats, linking them to the 2023 murder of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil. India also ordered the expulsion of Canadian diplomats and denies Canada’s allegations.

The U.S. Justice Department says Nijjar and Pannun were associates, and said that Gupta, who was allegedly hired by Yadav, felt that after Nijjar’s killing in Canada, there was “now no need to wait” on killing Pannun. The plot against Pannun was thwarted by U.S. authorities.

The accusations have tested Washington and Ottawa’s relations with India, often viewed by the West as a counterbalance to China.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh, Luc Cohen and Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Alistair Bell and Leslie Adler)

US charges Indian agent over alleged plot to kill Sikh separatist

AFP News
Fri, 18 October 2024

An Indian intelligence official has been indicted for his role in a foiled plot to kill a Sikh separatist leader in the United States, the Justice Department said Thursday.

Vikash Yadav, 39, who remains at large, is charged with conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and money laundering, the department said.

Yadav is the second Indian national to be charged in the United States in the alleged plot to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a US and Canadian citizen who lives in New York.

Nikhil Gupta, 53, pleaded not guilty in June to involvement in the assassination plot after being extradited to the United States from the Czech Republic.

Pannun is affiliated with a New York-based group called Sikhs for Justice that advocates for the secession of Punjab, a northern Indian state with a large Sikh population.

Pannun, in a statement on X, denounced the alleged assassination plot as a “blatant case of India’s transnational terrorism” and a “threat to freedom of speech and democracy.”

The Justice Department accused Yadav of directing the plot and said he recruited Gupta in May 2023 to hire a hitman to carry out the murder.

Gupta allegedly contacted an individual he believed to be a criminal associate to hire a hitman. The individual was in fact a confidential source working with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

“Yadav, an employee of the Indian government, used his position of authority and access to confidential information to direct the attempted assassination of an outspoken critic of the Indian government here on US soil,” Anne Milgram, the DEA chief, said in a statement.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department “will be relentless in holding accountable any person — regardless of their position or proximity to power — who seeks to harm and silence American citizens.”

– Ambassadors expelled –

According to the Justice Department, Yadav was employed by the Indian government’s Cabinet Secretariat, which houses the country’s foreign intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

The United States said Wednesday it had been informed by India that an intelligence operative accused of directing an assassination plot on US soil was no longer in government service.

“They did inform us that the individual who was named in the Justice Department indictment is no longer an employee of the Indian government,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said. “We are satisfied with the cooperation.”

The action by New Delhi represented a sharp contrast to its defiant approach to similar charges from Canada, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday accused India of violating his country’s sovereignty.

Canada has separately alleged that India arranged a plot on its soil that ended in the killing last year of a Sikh separatist, who was a naturalized Canadian citizen, outside a Vancouver temple.

Unlike the United States, Canada has highlighted its concerns publicly and at the highest level, with Trudeau criticizing India’s actions.

Canada and India on Monday expelled each other’s ambassadors as Ottawa said that the Indian campaign went further than previously reported.

India has rejected Canada’s charges and alleged a domestic political motive by Trudeau.

Canada has the largest Sikh community outside of India, concentrated in suburban areas that are critical in national elections.

Associated Press

Indian government employee charged in foiled murder-for-hire plot in New York City

ERIC TUCKER and LARRY NEUMEISTER
Updated Fri, 18 October 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department announced criminal charges Thursday against an Indian government employee who specialized in intelligence in connection with a foiled plot to kill a Sikh separatist leader living in New York City.

Vikash Yadav, 39, faces murder-for-hire charges in a planned killing that prosecutors first disclosed last year and have said was meant to precede a string of other politically motivated murders in the United States and Canada.

Yadav remains at large, but in charging him and releasing his name, the Biden administration sought to call out the Indian government for criminal activity that has emerged as a significant point of tension between India and the West over the last year — culminating this week with a diplomatic flare-up with Canada and the expulsion of diplomats.

“The FBI will not tolerate acts of violence or other efforts to retaliate against those residing in the U.S. for exercising their constitutionally protected rights,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement.

The criminal case against Yadav was announced the same week as two members of an Indian inquiry committee investigating the plot were in Washington to meet with U.S. officials about the investigation.

“They did inform us that the individual who was named in the Justice Department indictment is no longer an employee of the Indian government,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters before the case against Yadav was unsealed. “We are satisfied with cooperation. It continues to be an ongoing process.

On Monday, Canada said it had identified India’s top diplomat in the country as a person of interest in the assassination of a Sikh activist there and expelled him and five other diplomats.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and police officials went public this week with allegations that Indian diplomats were targeting Sikh separatists in Canada by sharing information about them with their government back home. They said top Indian officials were then passing that information along to Indian organized crime groups who were targeting the activists, who are Canadian citizens, with drive-by shootings, extortions and even murder.

India, for its part, has rejected the accusations as absurd, and its foreign ministry said it was expelling Canada’s acting high commissioner and five other diplomats in response.

The murder-for-hire plot was first disclosed by federal prosecutors last year when they announced charges against a man, Nikhil Gupta, who was recruited by a then-unidentified Indian government employee to orchestrate the assassination of a Sikh separatist leader in New York.

Gupta was extradited to the United States in June from the Czech Republic after his arrest in Prague last year.

The rewritten indictment said Yadav recruited Gupta in May 2023 to arrange the assassination. It said Gupta, an Indian citizen who lived in India, contacted an individual at Yadav’s direction, believing the individual to be a criminal associate. Instead, the indictment said, the individual was a confidential source working with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The indictment said Gupta asked the individual to help contract a hitman to carry out the murder, promising to pay $100,000. Of the $100,000 due for the attack, $15,000 was delivered by a Yadav associate to the DEA undercover source in Manhattan, according to the arrangements made by Yadav and Gupta, the indictment said.

Authorities said Yadav, a citizen and resident of India, directed the plot from India while he was employed by the government of India’s Cabinet Secretariat, which houses India’s foreign intelligence service. Yadav has described his position as a “Senior Field Officer” with responsibilities in “Security Management” and “Intelligence,” the Justice Department said.

As the assassination plot was created in June 2023, Yadav gave Gupta personal information about the Sikh separatist leader, including his home address in New York City, his phone numbers and details about his day-to-day movements, which Gupta then passed along to the undercover DEA operative, according to court papers.

Yadav directed Gupta to keep him updated regularly on the progress of the assassination plot, leading Gupta to send him surveillance photographs of the intended victim, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who advocated for the creation of a sovereign Sikh state, the indictment said.

U.S. authorities have said the killing of Pannun was to have occurred just days after Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh activist who had been exiled from India, was shot and killed outside a cultural center in Surrey, British Columbia, on June 18, 2023. Prosecutors say the goal was to kill at least four people in Canada and the U.S. by June 29, 2023, and then more after that.

In a statement, Pannun said the indictment means the U.S. government has “reassured its commitment to fundamental constitutional duty to protect the life, liberty and freedom of expression of the U.S. Citizen at home and abroad.”

He added, “The attempt on my life on American Soil is the blatant case of India’s transnational terrorism which has become a challenge to America’s sovereignty and threat to freedom of speech and democracy, which unequivocally proves that India believes in using bullets while pro Khalistan Sikhs believe in ballots.”

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Neumeister reported from New York.