The Indian man who US prosecutors accused of plotting to kill a prominent US-based activist after being recruited by an agent of the Indian government has pleaded guilty to three criminal charges, according to a spokesperson for the US attorney’s office in Manhattan.
Nikhil Gupta faces a maximum 40 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, and money laundering charges in connection to the failed attempt to assassinate Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a US resident who is an advocate for a sovereign Sikh state in
northern India.
“Nikhil Gupta plotted to assassinate a US citizen in New York City,” said US attorney Jay Clayton. “He thought that from outside this country he could kill someone in it without consequence, simply for exercising their American right to free speech. But he was wrong, and he will face justice. Our message to all nefarious foreign actors should be clear: steer clear of the United States and our people.”
James Barnacle, the FBI assistant director in charge, added that Gupta had worked “at the direction and coordination of an Indian government employee”.
Pannun, who serves as a lawyer at a New York-based group called Sikhs for Justice, was not immediately available for comment. When news of the plot against him first broke in 2023, he told the Guardian that the case revealed a “blatant case of India’s transnational terrorism” and that the failed attempt on his life had only galvanized his efforts to pursue a symbolic referendum on an independent Sikh homeland, known as Khalistan.
The news marks a stunning development in a case that began in June 2023, when another high-profile Sikh activist named Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead outside a Sikh temple in British Columbia, Canada. Justin Trudeau, who served as Canada’s prime minister at the time, said months after the murder that there were “credible allegations” that agents of the Indian government had carried out the killing.
India called the accusation “absurd” and politically motivated. But Trudeau’s allegation gained credibility in November that year, when the US attorney’s office in NY unsealed an indictment against Gupta, and announced he was being extradited back to the US from the Czech Republic.
Gupta was described at the time as an Indian national who resided in India and was an associate of an Indian government official – later identified as Vikash Yadav – who had recruited Gupta to orchestrate the assassination of Pannun, an American citizen, on US soil.
Yadav was also indicted but remains at large and is a subject of a federal arrest warrant.
WhenGupta contacted an individual to carry out the murder, he believed he was contacting a criminal associate. In fact, the individual was a described as a confidential source working with the US Drug Enforcement Administration, US prosecutors said.
India’s government has dissociated itself from any plot against
Pannun, saying it was against government policy, according to Reuters.
The news follows a significant development in US-India relations earlier this month, after Donald Trump claimed that India had agreed to stop buying Russian oil and that he agreed to cut US tariffs on India exports. In a post, Trump called Indian prime minister Narendra Modi “one of my greatest friends”. US officials have said that there is no evidence that Modi was aware of the plot, the New York Times reported.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: theguardian.com
