Indian government employee charged in foiled murder-for-hire plot in New York City
WASHINGTON — The justice ministry on thursday announced criminal charges against an indian government official in connection with a foiled plot to assassinate a Sikh separatist leader living in New York City.
Vikash Yadav, 39, is charged with murder-for-hire in a planned killing that prosecutors first disclosed last year and which prosecutors say was intended to precede a series of other politically motivated killings in the United States and Canada.
Yadav remains at large, but by adding him to the indictment and releasing his name, the Biden administration sought to publicly confront the Indian government over criminal activities that have emerged as a major point of tension between India and the West over the past year have emerged – culminating this week in a diplomatic flare-up with Canada and the expulsion of diplomats.
“The FBI will not tolerate acts of violence or other attempts to retaliate against those living in the United States for exercising their constitutionally protected rights,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement.
The criminal case was announced the same week when two members of an Indian investigative committee investigating the plot were in Washington to meet with US officials about the investigation.
“They have informed us that the individual named in the Justice Department indictment is no longer an employee of the Indian government,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters before the case against Yadav was opened. “We are satisfied with the collaboration. remains an ongoing process.
On Monday, Canada said it had identified India’s top diplomat in the country as a person of interest involved in the murder of a Sikh activist there and expelled him and five other diplomats from the country.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and police officials became public this week with allegations that Indian diplomats targeted Sikh separatists in Canada by sharing information about them with their government back home. They said top Indian officials then passed that information on to Indian organized crime groups that targeted the activists, who are Canadian citizens, with drive-by shootings, extortions and even murder.
For its part, India has dismissed the allegations as absurd, and the Foreign Ministry said it is expelling Canada’s acting High Commissioner and five other diplomats in response.
The murder plot was first revealed by federal prosecutors last year when they announced charges against a man, Nikhil Gupta, who was recruited by a then-unknown Indian government official to orchestrate the killing of a Sikh separatist leader in New York.
Gupta was extradited from the Czech Republic to the United States in June following his arrest in Prague last year.
The rewritten indictment stated that Yadav recruited Gupta to arrange the murder in May 2023. It said that Gupta, an Indian national living in India, contacted an individual at Yadav’s direction, believing the individual to be a criminal associate. Instead, the indictment said, the individual was a confidential source working with the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Authorities said Yadav, a citizen and resident of India, led the plot from India while employed in the Cabinet Secretariat of the Government of India, which houses India’s Foreign Intelligence Service. Yadav has described his position as a ‘Senior Field Officer’ with responsibilities in ‘Security Management’ and ‘Intelligence’, the Ministry of Justice said.
When the assassination plot was created in June 2023, Yadav gave Gupta personal information about the Sikh separatist leader, including his home address in New York City, his phone numbers and details of his daily movements, which Gupta then passed on to the undercover DEA agent, according to court documents.
Yadav instructed Gupta to keep him regularly informed of the progress of the assassination plot, which led to Gupta sending him surveillance photos of the intended victim, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who advocated the creation of a sovereign Sikh state.
In a statement, Pannun said the indictment means the U.S. government has “reassured its commitment to the fundamental constitutional duty to protect the life, liberty, and freedom of expression of American citizens at home and abroad.”
He added: “The attempt on my life on American soil is the blatant case of India’s transnational terrorism which has become a challenge to American sovereignty and a threat to freedom of expression and democracy, unequivocally proving that India believes in the use of bullets while pro Khalistan Sikhs believe in ballot papers.”
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Neumeister reported from New York.