Ex-Indian government agent plotted assassination on U.S. soil, DOJ says

NEW DELHI — A former employee of the Indian government has been indicted in the U.S. on charges of directing the assassination attempt of a Sikh separatist leader in New York City.

The Justice Department, in an 18-page indictment Thursday, charged Vikash Yadav, 39, with three counts of murder-for-hire and money laundering. Federal prosecutors said Yadav was a “senior field officer” for New Delhi.

Yadav, they say, orchestrated the plot from India and hired Nikhil Gupta, another Indian national who is himself accused of trying to hire a hit man. Their New York target was an attorney and political activist who is a U.S. citizen of Indian origin, prosecutors said.

Gupta was arrested last year in connection with the plot by authorities in the Czech Republic and extradited to the U.S.

Yadav “allegedly conspired with a criminal associate and attempted to assassinate a U.S. citizen on American soil for exercising their First Amendment rights,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a news release Thursday.

The FBI released a wanted poster for Yadav, who remains at large.

India said last year that the assassination plot did not represent government policy and announced the formation of an inquiry committee after allegations surfaced against Gupta.

The announcement of the criminal case against Yadav came as members of an Indian committee investigating the plot were in Washington to meet with U.S. officials this week.

“They did inform us that the individual who was named in the Justice Department indictment is no longer an employee of the Indian Government,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters Wednesday, adding the U.S. was “satisfied with the cooperation.” 

The indictment was issued amid heightened diplomatic tensions between India and Canada. On Monday, Canada accused India of using its diplomats to plot the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, another Sikh activist, in June 2023. 

Nijjar, 45, was a leader of the Khalistan movement, a separatist movement outlawed in India that calls for the formation of a separate country for Sikhs. 

Nijjar was also mentioned as a target by Yadav and was an associate of the activist he plotted to assassinate in New York, the Justice Department release said.

The New York target was a vocal critic of the Indian government and also a Khalistan advocate, it added.

While the DOJ did not name the victim, The Associated Press has identified him as Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, whom Indian officials have labeled a terrorist.

India has also denied Canada’s allegations about Nijjar’s assassination, saying it has not provided any firm evidence. Both countries expelled each other’s top diplomats this week.

“Canada has presented us no evidence whatsoever in support of the serious allegations that it has chosen to level against India and Indian diplomats,” India’s foreign ministry said in a statement Thursday.

The State Department has said the U.S. wants India to cooperate with Canada in its investigation. “Obviously, they have not chosen that path,” Miller, the spokesperson, told reporters Tuesday.

Yadav was employed by India’s Cabinet secretariat, which also houses the country’s foreign intelligence wing, the Research and Analysis Wing, the Justice Department indictment said. 

The U.S. Embassy in New Delhi declined to comment further, and India’s Ministry of External Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.

Yadav had served in India’s largest paramilitary force, the CRPF, and used the alias of “Amanat” to direct the assassination plot from India, which began last year in May with the help of Gupta, prosecutors said.

Gupta then contacted an individual who he thought was a criminal associate for help in hiring a hitman, but the person was a contact for the Drug Enforcement Administration, prosecutors said. Yadav then agreed to pay $100,000 to the hitman, who was also an undercover DEA officer, and in June arranged the advance payment of $15,000, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors also allege that the undercover officer was instructed not to carry out the killing around the time of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to Washington last year.

“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 Justice Department’s National Security Division said in the news release.