US accuses Indian agent of plotting to kill American citizen

U.S. prosecutors have accused an Indian government agent of leading an assassination attempt on an American citizen on U.S. soil, according to a superseding indictment released by the Justice Department that revealed new details about alleged Indian attacks on Sikh activists around the world.

According to The Guardian, the indictment unsealed on Wednesday also presents new evidence that an unnamed Indian agent ordered the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Sikh activist who was gunned down outside a Sikh temple in British Columbia ( Canada) in June.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced in September that there were “credible allegations” that Indian government agents carried out Nijjar’s murder. India has denied the claims, calling them “absurd” and politically motivated.

But the US indictment insists there is evidence of a global conspiracy allegedly orchestrated in India to silence and kill outspoken critics of the Indian government who support the creation of an independent Sikh state.

Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the target of the alleged murder plot, told The Guardian that the indictment revealed “a blatant case of transnational terrorism in India,” adding that the attempt on his life had only intensified his efforts to hold a symbolic referendum on an independent Sikh Khalistan state.

“If death is the price for holding a referendum in Khalistan, I am ready to pay that price,” he said in a statement. – First by killing Nijjar in Canada, and then trying to kill me on US soil, India led [премьер-министра Нарендры Моди] extended its policy of violent suppression of the Sikh movement for the right to self-determination to foreign territories.”

Speaking on Wednesday, Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau said: “The news coming out of the United States once again underscores what we have been saying all along, which is that India needs to take this seriously.”

The US Justice Department has not named the Indian government official, referred to in the indictment as CC-1 and who says he previously served in India’s Central Reserve Police Force. The Justice Department charged another person, 52-year-old Nikhil Gupta, with working closely with an Indian agent.

Gupta, an Indian national, is described as a “close associate” of CC-1 and has allegedly described his involvement in international drug and arms trafficking. He was arrested and taken into custody on June 30 in the Czech Republic and has now been extradited to the United States under a bilateral extradition treaty.

According to the indictment, an Indian government agent working with Gupta and others in India and elsewhere led a plot to kill an American lawyer and political activist living in New York. It is alleged that around May 2023, CC-1 recruited Gupta to orchestrate the “murder” of the US victim, who was described by prosecutors as “an outspoken critic of the Indian government and heads a US-based organization advocating the secession of Punjab, the northern Indian state that is home to a large number of Sikhs.”

The Financial Times first reported last week that US authorities had foiled a plot to kill a Sikh separatist on American soil and issued a warning to the Indian government over concerns it was involved in the plot.

According to the indictment, Gupta, allegedly working at the direction of an Indian agent, contacted a man he believed to be an associate of a criminal for help in hiring a hitman to kill the target.

But the employee was actually a confidential source working for US law enforcement, and the alleged hitman they introduced Gupta to was an undercover US law enforcement officer.

The alleged hitman was eventually offered – in a deal allegedly brokered by Gupta – $100,000 to kill a target in New York. As a down payment, Gupta arranged with another employee of the Indian agent (CC-1) to deliver $15,000 to the alleged hitman.

As the story progressed, the Indian agent allegedly regularly asked Gupta for information on how the plan was progressing. Gupta, in turn, provided the Indian agent with CCTV photographs and other materials. Gupta urged the alleged hitman to carry out the murder as soon as possible, but warned him against committing the murder during expected meetings between “senior US and Indian government officials.”

The detail is likely a reference to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit last June, a high-level meeting at which Joe Biden called the US-India partnership “stronger, closer and more dynamic than any time in history.” believes The Guardian.

Nijjar, a Canadian activist, was killed by masked gunmen on June 18. Hours later, the indictment alleges, CC-1 sent Gupta a video clip showing Nijjar’s bloody body lying in his car, followed by the address of the alleged victim’s US home in New York.

The Indian government, as The Guardian notes, has long complained about the presence of Sikh separatist groups outside India, who are campaigning for the creation of an independent Sikh state of Khalistan, which should be separated from India.