Accused no longer Indian govt employee, satisfied with cooperation: US on Pannun assassination plot probe

In contrast, Ottawa continues to accuse New Delhi of not cooperating with the investigation into the June 2023 killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada.

New Delhi: A security official whom the United States accused of being involved in a plot to kill a Khalistani Sikh extremist leader in New York is no longer an employee of the Government of India, both Washington DC and New Delhi confirmed on Thursday.

Though Ottawa accused New Delhi of not cooperating with the investigation into the June 2023 killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada, President Joe Biden’s administration in Washington DC has expressed satisfaction over New Delhi’s response to the allegation of the US prosecutors about the involvement of the officials of the Government of India in an alleged plot to murder another Khalistani Sikh extremist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York.

New Delhi has been consistently saying that it had received no evidence from Ottawa in support of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s allegation about the role of the agents of the Government of India in the killing of Nijjar, who led the terrorist organisation, Khalistan Tiger Force, in India before fleeing to Canada. But, in the case of the plot to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, New Delhi took a different approach to probe the US allegation as Washington DC had shared ‘inputs’ with it.

“We have taken these inputs very seriously and we have remained engaged with the US on this particular matter,” Randhir Jaiswal, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs of the Government of India, said in New Delhi on Thursday. He said that the contexts of the allegations by the US and Canada had been different.

“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,” Matthew Miller, the spokesperson of the US State Department, said during a media briefing on Wednesday. He was replying to a journalist who asked him if Washington DC was satisfied with India’s cooperation in the investigation launched in the US into the plot to kill Pannun.

Pannun is a leader of the Sikhs for Justice, an extremist organisation proscribed by New Delhi, but active in Canada, the US, the UK, and other countries in the West, particularly in leading and coordinating the global campaign to carve out Khalistan from India and make a new 'homeland' for Sikhs from India.

The US prosecutors in November 2023 accused Indian businessman Nikhil Gupta, who had been arrested in the Czech Republic a few months earlier, of trying to hire a hitman to kill the SFJ leader in New York.

Gupta, according to the indictment filed by the US Department of Justice in a court in New York, was working at the behest of a Government of India official, who was identified in the court document as ‘CC1’.

The CC1, according to the US prosecutors, had earlier worked with the Central Reserve Police Force of India and had received training in battlecraft and weapons. He had allegedly described himself as a “senior field officer” with responsibilities in “security management” and “intelligence”. A report in the Washington Post in April this year identified ‘CC1’ as Vikash Yadav. New Delhi never denied the report. Neither had it ever confirmed his identity.

Two members of a team constituted by the Government of India to probe the allegation had a meeting with the US officials in Washington DC on Tuesday.

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

“Yes, I confirm that he is no longer an employee of the government of India,” Jaiswal, the spokesperson of the MEA, said in New Delhi on Thursday.

The CC-1, according to the US indictment, had agreed to pay $100,000 to the hitman, an undercover agent of the American Drug Enforcement Agency, hired by Gupta to kill Pannun.

The Biden Administration expressed satisfaction with India’s cooperation with the US in probing the plot to kill the radical SFJ leader at a time when New Delhi’s diplomatic spat with Ottawa over the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, another Khalistani Sikh extremist, in Canada on June 18, 2023, escalated, with both sides expelling each other’s diplomats and officials this week.