US accuses Indian government employee of foiled murder-for-hire plot – National
The US Department of Justice announced criminal charges against an Indian government official on Thursday in connection with a foiled plot to assassinate a Sikh leader living in New York City.
Vikash Yadav is still at large but is facing charges of murder for hire in a federal court.
The criminal case was announced in the same week as two members of the Indian commission investigating the plot are in Washington to meet with US officials about the investigation.
“The Department of Justice will not stop responding to any individual — regardless of position or proximity to power — who seeks to harm and silence American citizens,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement announcing the charges.
The charges come days after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and police officials went public with allegations that Indian politicians targeted Sikh separatists in Canada by sharing information about them with their government back home. They said senior Indian officials were passing that information on to Indian organized crime groups who were targeting the activists, who are Canadian citizens, for shootings, robberies and even murders.
The two sides ordered the expulsion of top diplomats this week in an ongoing row over the allegations, including Canadian allegations that the diplomats were linked to the June 2023 killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
The New York murder-for-hire 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 employee to plan the assassination of a Sikh leader in New York. York.
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Gupta was extradited to the United States in June from the Czech Republic after his arrest in Prague last year.
In a statement, the intended victim, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, said the lawsuit means the US government has “reaffirmed its commitment to the fundamental constitutional duty of protecting the life, liberty and freedom of speech of the American citizen at home and abroad.”
He added, “The attempt on my life on American Soil is a clear case of international terrorism in India which has become a challenge to American sovereignty and a threat to freedom of speech and democracy, which proves beyond doubt that India believes in using bullets while pro Khalistan Sikhs.” believe in votes.”
The Indian government on Thursday denied that it was working with mobs to target Sikh separatists in Canada as Ottawa said, and even suggested that Canadian authorities were opposing Indian efforts to repatriate those people to India.
Nijjar’s killing in Canada has damaged India-Canada relations for more than a year, and despite Canada’s insistence that it has sent evidence of its allegations to Indian authorities, the Indian government continues to deny having seen it.
Jaiswal also said Thursday that Canada is not providing evidence of its allegations of attacks on Sikh activists, contradicting Trudeau’s statement this week that his country’s investigators had secretly shared information with their Indian counterparts and discovered they were not cooperating.
Four Indian nationals living in Canada have been charged with Nijjar’s murder and are awaiting trial.
The allegations have also tested Washington’s relationship with India, which is often seen by the West as a rival to China.
India has called Sikh separatists “terrorists” and threats to its security. Sikh separatists want an independent state known as Khalistan to be carved out of India. Insurgency in India in the 1980s and 1990s killed tens of thousands.
-Additional files from Reuters
© 2024 The Canadian Press
