Former RAW official plotted to kill Sikh separatist Pannun in US, claims Biden govt

WASHINGTON: A former Indian government official has been charged by the US authorities for his alleged role in a foiled plot to assassinate Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on American soil around the state visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Vikas Yadav, 39, was employed by the Cabinet Secretariat, which houses India's foreign intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the federal prosecutors claimed on Thursday in an indictment filed in a US court in New York.

Yadav faces murder-for-hire and money laundering charges in connection with his role in directing a foiled plot to kill Pannun.

He “remains at large”, the Department of Justice said.

Yadav had been identified only as “CC-1” (co-conspirator) in the first indictment. On Thursday in New Delhi, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, responding to a query on the person identified in the indictment of the US Department of Justice (DoJ) in connection with the case, confirmed that the person is "no longer an employee of the government of India”.

His co-conspirator Nikhil Gupta was arrested in the Czech Republic last year and is languishing in a US jail after extradition.

“Today’s charges demonstrate that the Justice Department will not tolerate attempts to target and endanger Americans and to undermine the rights to which every US citizen is entitled,” US Attorney General Merrick B Garland said.

“The defendant, an Indian government employee, allegedly conspired with a criminal associate and attempted to assassinate a US citizen on American soil for exercising their First Amendment rights,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray.

The Indian government has denied its association or involvement with such a plot to kill an American national on US soil. Following allegations by the US, New Delhi had set up an inquiry committee to investigate the matter.

The US has expressed satisfaction on cooperation from India on this.

Unsealing of the second indictment comes within 48 hours of an Indian Enquiry Committee visiting here to have a meeting with an inter-agency team of officials from the FBI, Department of Justice and the State Department on these issues.

“We are satisfied with the cooperation. It continues to be an ongoing process. We continue to work with them on that, but we do appreciate the cooperation, and we appreciate them updating us on their investigation as we update them on ours,” State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters on Wednesday.

“The meeting that occurred on Thursday – we updated – we being the US government broadly – updated members of the Committee of Inquiry about the investigation that the United States has been conducting. We’ve received an update from them on the investigation that they have been conducting. It was a productive meeting, and I will leave it at that,” Miller said.

“They did inform us that the individual, who was named in the Justice Department indictment, is no longer an employee of the Indian government,” he added.

Running into 18 pages, the indictment posts pictures of Yadav in a military dress and also gives a picture of two persons exchanging dollars in a car in New York, which federal prosecutors said was the money being paid to the alleged killer by a person on behalf of Gupta and Yadav to assassinate the Sikh separatist leader in New York.

The picture is dated June 9, 2023 The name of the Sikh separatist, a US citizen, is not mentioned in the indictment.

“By indicting RAW Official Vikash Yadav in “Murder For Hire” Plot, US Government has reassured its commitment to fundamental constitutional duty to protect the life, liberty and freedom of expression of the US Citizen at home and abroad,” Pannun, general counsel to separatist Sikh for Justice, said in a statement after the indictment was released by the Department of Justice.

The damaging indictment alleges that Yadav along with his co-conspirator Nikhil Gupta plotted to kill the Sikh separatist leader in the summer of 2023. For this Gupta hired an individual to do the kill job. The unidentified individual, who was an informant to the FBI asked for USD 100,000 for the job and received USD 15,000 as an advance payment on June 9, 2023.

It was during the same month that President Joe Biden had invited Prime Minister Modi on a historic state visit, which took place on June 22. According to the indictment, Yadav told Gupta and the hired killer not to do the job immediately before or during the State visit.

The indictment reveals that there was a link between the murder of another Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada during the same period. Federal prosecutors have shared communications between Yadav, Gupta and the alleged killer on the two incidents.

“A few minutes later, Yadav messaged Gupta, instructing: "Let them also verify on their own...if they are able to get some proof that he is inside... it will be a go-ahead from us," a reference to giving the green light to assassinate the victim as soon as it could be verified that he was at his residence,” the federal prosecutors alleged.

“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 Government of India has banned the victim and his separatist organisation from India. The US law enforcement detected and disrupted the plot to murder the victim,” it said.