WASHINGTON, Nov 30 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The US has said it foiled an alleged plot to assassinate an American citizen in New York who advocated for a Sikh separatist state.
Nikhil Gupta, an Indian national, is accused of trying to hire a hitman for $100,000 in cash.
But the hitman was actually an undercover federal agent, prosecutors said.
Gupta, 52, is in jail in the Czech Republic pending extradition. The charges carry up to 20 years in prison.
He was allegedly directed by an Indian government official who was not named or charged in the indictment.
The White House said it had raised the alleged assassination plot with India at the most senior levels, and officials there responded with “surprise and concern”.
A senior administration official said the murder-for-hire allegations so concerned President Joe Biden that he dispatched top US intelligence leaders – CIA Director William Burns and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines – to India to speak to officials there.
India’s government, meanwhile, said it was investigating.
While the target was not named by prosecutors, US media reported it was Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a dual US-Canadian citizen and member of a US-based Sikh activist group.
Sikhs are a religious minority that make up about 2% of India’s population. Some groups have long called for a separate homeland for Sikhs called Khalistan.
Those calls peaked in India in the 1980s with an armed insurgency that was later crushed, killing thousands. Supporters in the Sikh diaspora have continued to advocate for Khalistan, however.
News of the alleged plot comes after Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there was “credible” evidence tying the Indian government to the murder of another Sikh activist in British Columbia in June. India denies any role in that killing.
Trudeau said the indictment on Wednesday underscored the need for India to take that allegation seriously.
Gupta was recruited by an Indian government employee in May, prosecutors said, adding that the pair met in Delhi to discuss the potential assassination.
The indictment says Gupta intended to meet a hitman in New York City. Instead, he was introduced to an undercover law enforcement officer who said he would carry out the killing for $100,000.
Gupta paid $15,000 upfront via an associate on June 9, prosecutors said, and the indictment includes an apparent photograph of this payment.
He was arrested later that month in the Czech Republic where he is awaiting extradition to the US.
The target was also an associate of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, the leader in the Sikh independence movement who was murdered by a masked gunman in Canada in June.
Shortly after Nijjar’s murder, Gupta allegedly received a video clip from the Indian official that showed Nijjar’s “bloody body slumped in his vehicle”.
The indictment says the Indian official then sent the target’s address to Gupta. — NNN-AGENCIES
