The discovery of a plot to assassinate a Sikh separatist on US soil earlier this year so concerned the Biden administration that it dispatched its top two intelligence officials to New Delhi to demand the Indian government investigate and hold to account those responsible, senior administration officials said.
CIA Director Bill Burns flew to India in August and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines followed in October, said the officials.
The charges against Nikhil Gupta, which will be lodged by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, relate to a murder-for-hire plot targeting Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, general counsel for the New York-based Sikhs for Justice, a group calling for the creation of an independent Sikh state called Khalistan within India.
Gupta allegedly conspired with a number of people, at least one of whom is believed to be an official in India, they said.
The scheme was foiled in June by the Drug Enforcement Administration, shortly after a Sikh separatist in Canada was assassinated. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in September made a bombshell announcement that there were “credible allegations” that New Delhi was behind the killing.
U.S. law enforcement is working closely with counterparts in Canada on both matters, officials said.
How Canada got caught up in the Sikh separatist struggle in India charges against Gupta, who is not in the United States, will build on a bare-bones indictment filed in mid-June and unsealed in July, which alleged that Gupta coordinated a $15,000 advance payment to a purported hit man’s associate, according to the people familiar with the matter.—Agencies
