US indicts ex-RAW official in Sikh separatist murder plot, reveals his identity, pictures

New Delhi: The United States has indicted a former officer of India’s external intelligence agency, Research and Analytical Wing (RAW), for directing a foiled plot to murder Khalistani Sikh extremist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York in June 2023.   

The move by the US Department of Justice came even as New Delhi over the past few days repeatedly dismissed allegations by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government in Ottawa about the role of India’s diplomats in targeting Khalistani Sikh extremists in Canada.  

The indictment unsealed at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York late on Thursday identified the accused as Vikas Yadav and alleged that he had been an employee of the Cabinet Secretariat of the Government of India while plotting to kill Pannun.

The indictment also noted that the Cabinet Secretariat housed the RAW, the foreign intelligence service of India. He was accused of recruiting Indian businessman Nikhil Gupta, who was arrested in the Czech Republic in June 2023 and extradited to the US a year later, to hire a hitman to kill Pannun, an American Sikh, known for playing a lead role in reviving the global campaign for the secession of Khalistan from India.

The US move to accuse a former RAW officer of being involved with the plot to kill Pannun came just days after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government in Ottawa had made an attempt to bring India’s High Commissioner to Canada, Sanjay Kumar Verma, and his five colleagues within the ambit of a police investigation into the role of New Delhi in the June 18, 2023, murder of another Khalistani Sikh extremist, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in the British Columbia province of the North American country.

New Delhi decided to withdraw Verma and his five colleagues from Ottawa and retaliated by expelling six diplomats of Canada from India.

Yadav had earlier been mentioned as ‘CC1’ in the indictment that the US prosecutors had filed against Nikhil Gupta in the same court in New York in November 2023.

The US Department of Justice, however, now accused and made public the identity of the former RAW officer. The move came immediately after New Delhi conveyed to Washington DC that he was no longer in the service of the Government of India.

Gupta is incarcerated in a jail in Brooklyn in the US. Yadav “remains at large”, according to the latest indictment filed by the US Justice Department in the case.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also put the pictures of Yadav and his details, like date and place of birth, on its “Most Wanted” list.  

 “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,” US Attorney General, Merrick B. Garland, said. “As alleged, last year, we foiled an attempt by Vikash Yadav, an Indian government employee, and his co-conspirator, Nikhil Gupta, to assassinate an American citizen on US soil. 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.”

Yadav, who was said to be born in Haryana in India, was also accused by the US of money laundering. He had allegedly agreed to pay $100,000 to the hitman, an undercover agent of the US Drug Enforcement Agency, hired by Gupta to kill Pannun. He was also accused of making an advance payment of $15000 to the hitman through an associate in the US on June 9, 2023, just a few days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi had embarked on a state visit to Washington DC on an invitation from President Joe Biden.

“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,” FBI Director Christopher Wray was quoted saying in a press release issued by the US Department of Justice.

“The FBI will not tolerate acts of violence or other efforts to retaliate against those residing in the US for exercising their constitutionally protected rights. We are committed to working with our partners to detect, disrupt, and hold accountable foreign nationals or others who seek to engage in such acts of transnational repression.”

“Today’s charges are a grave example of the increase in lethal plotting and other forms of violent transnational repression targeting diaspora communities in the United States,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice was quoted saying in the press release.

“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 no matter who they are or where they reside.”