US Charges Indian Government Employee in Plot to Kill US Citizen

(Bloomberg) — U.S. prosecutors charged an Indian government employee with directing a foiled plot to assassinate a Sikh separatist with U.S. citizenship in New York, in a move that has strained U.S.-India ties and mirrors a 2023 killing in Canada. Have done.

Vikas Yadav, 39, was linked to the criminal case against Nikhil Gupta, 53. Gupta was accused last year of working with an Indian government agent to kill a lawyer who was active in the global movement to create a Sikh homeland independent from India.

According to the indictment, Yadav “resided in India and directed the murder conspiracy from India.”

Gupta, who was arrested in the Czech Republic and extradited to the US, was allegedly recruited by an Indian government employee who described himself as a “senior sector” with responsibilities in “security management” and “intelligence”. “Officer”. The government official, who was not named in the original charges against Gupta, was identified in Thursday’s indictment as Yadav.

The case has been an awkward one for President Joe Biden’s administration, which has continued to court New Delhi in an effort to balance China.

Prosecutors said Yadav worked in the Cabinet Secretariat of the Indian government, which is home to the country’s foreign intelligence service. Manhattan US Attorney Damien Williams said in a release that Yadav is not in custody, announcing the dropping of charges against Yadav, who reportedly went by the alias “Amanat”.

Yadav and Gupta are accused of murder for hire, conspiracy to commit murder for hire and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Gupta, who is being held without bail, has pleaded innocent.

Lawyer Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who was the alleged target of the murder plot, praised the charges against Yadav.

The attempt on his life is “a clear case of India’s international terrorism that poses a challenge to America’s sovereignty and a threat to freedom of expression and democracy,” Pannun said in a statement.

India has labeled him a terrorist and outlawed his group, which advocates the creation of an independent Sikh homeland out of the Indian state of Punjab, calling it a threat to India’s territorial integrity.

The charges come after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this week accused Indian diplomats of supporting a pattern of criminal harassment and violence against Canadians, a controversy that began last year when he suggested that British Indian agents were involved in the murder of a Canadian Sikh activist. Colombia.

Canada on Monday expelled six officials after it said India waived their diplomatic immunity after Foreign Minister Melanie Jolie asked them to raise questions over “several violent incidents” targeting Canada’s South Asian community, especially Sikhs. Had refused.

After US prosecutors first filed charges against Gupta, the Indian government formed a committee to look into the issue. That team visited the US this week and held meetings at the State Department in Washington.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters on Wednesday that the visiting delegation informed US officials that the Indian government employee named in the original indictment “is no longer an employee of the Government of India.”

The case is US v. Gupta, 23-cr-00289, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

–With assistance from Laura Dhillon Kane.

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