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US federal prosecutors have charged an Indian government official with orchestrating a plot to murder a Sikh activist in New York City.
The move threatens to escalate tensions with New Delhi just days after Canada expelled six diplomats in a bitter dispute over an extrajudicial killing.
The Department of Justice said Vikash Yadav, described as a “senior field officer” in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration, directed a “murder-for-hire” scheme from India.
According to the DoJ, the plot involved paying a hitman $100,000 for assassinating a US-Canadian citizen who was part of a separatist movement advocating an independent Sikh state.
Although prosecutors did not name the target of the foiled plot, the Financial Times last year confirmed it was Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, general counsel for US-based group Sikhs for Justice.
The Indian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the indictment.
In charges unsealed on Thursday, prosecutors claimed Yadav had overseen a scheme to kill Pannun, providing his address in New York and his phone numbers to the would-be assassin, who was an undercover US agent.
In June 2023, Yadav was also allegedly communicating about the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, an associate of Pannun’s and a fellow Sikh activist, in a suburb of Vancouver, Canada.
Yadav sent a video of Nijjar’s body to an associate, prosecutors said, and days later forwarded a news article about Pannun, writing: “[i]t’s [a] priority now”.
In a statement on Thursday, Pannun said the US had done its “fundamental constitutional duty” to protect citizens.
“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,” he said.
Pannun described Yadav as a “mid-tier soldier” assigned to conduct a murder plot under orders from India’s national security adviser, Ajit Doval.
The charges against Yadav come as tensions between Canada and India reached a new high, with the countries expelling each other’s diplomats earlier this week.
The two nations have been embroiled in a bitter dispute since Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last year that there were “credible allegations” of Indian government involvement in Nijjar’s death — claims that have been vigorously denied by New Delhi.
US assistant attorney-general Matthew Olsen said on Thursday the charges against Yadav were “a grave example of the increase in lethal plotting and other forms of violent transnational repression targeting diaspora communities in the United States”.
He added: “To the governments around the world who may be considering such criminal activity and to the communities they would target, let there be no doubt that the Department of Justice is committed to disrupting and exposing these plots and to holding the wrongful actors accountable.”
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