How a man named Nikhil Gupta ‘plotted to kill’ Gurpatwant Singh Pannun

The latest news coming from the United States has the potential of becoming a huge headache for India. It seems there’s much more to the ‘assassination attempt’ on Sikhs for Justice chief Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on American soil. On Wednesday (29 November), the US Justice Department charged an Indian national for his involvement in a plot to murder a US-based Khalistani leader, an official press release said. “Today in the Southern District of New York, a superseding indictment was unsealed alleging murder-for-hire charges against Indian national Nikhil Gupta, aka Nick, 52, in connection with his participation in a foiled plot to assassinate a US citizen in New York City,” the statement said. The news of the US indictment also prompted Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, who had earlier alleged that there were ‘credible allegations’ that India was involved in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, to say that it was time New Delhi took similar allegations by Ottawa seriously. “The news coming out of the United States further underscores what we’ve been talking about from the very beginning, which is that India needs to take this seriously,” the Canadian prime minister told reporters in Ottawa. But what is it we know of Nikhil Gupta? What does the indictment reveal about the assassination attempt? What does this mean for India-US ties? We get you all the answers and more. What does the indictment reveal about the assassination? On Wednesday, US Federal authorities announced that they had filed charges in connection to a foiled assassination plot against a US citizen on American soil. It has charged Nikhil Gupta, an Indian national, with conspiring to hire a hit man to assassinate a member of the Sikh separatist movement in New York City. Notably, the indictment doesn’t mention the name of the target of the assassination. However, the Financial Times has reported that Gurpatwant Singh Pannun , the chief of the New York–based group Sikhs for Justice , was the subject of the plot. According to the indictment, an Indian government employee (who has not been named and simply referred to as CC-1) working together with others, including Gupta, in India and elsewhere, directed a plot to assassinate on US soil an attorney and political activist who is a US citizen of Indian origin residing in New York City. The indictment describes CC-1 as a “senior field officer” whose responsibilities include “intelligence”. Additionally, he has been referenced previously as serving in India’s Central Reserve Police Force and receiving “officer training” in “battle craft” and “weapons.” The US authorities state that it was this CC-1 who directed the assassination plot from India. The indictment states that CC-1 recruited Nikhil Gupta in and around May 2023 to orchestrate the assassination. It further adds that on the orders of CC-1, Gupta then contacted a ‘criminal associate’. However, that ‘associate’ was a confidential source working with US law enforcement. The source then introduced Gupta to a “purported hitman”, who was in fact an “undercover US law enforcement officer”, following which a deal of “$100,000 (Rs 83 lakh)” was brokered to carry out the job, the DoJ said. A month later, in June, CC-1 provided Gupta with personal details of the intended target, including the target’s house address in New York City and much more. Furthermore, CC-1 instructed Gupta to provide him with updates on the assassination plot. Authorities in the indictment add that CC-1 had very specifically informed Gupta not to carry out the assassination at the time of high-level engagements between US and Indian officials.

Please also read Unmasking Gurpatwant Singh Pannun: Timing, threats and interplay of global influences Nijjar vs Pannun: Why India’s response to Canada and US probes is so different ‘Plot to kill Pannun’ a dubious narrative floated by American deep state to scuttle the trajectory of India-US ties

The indictment has also stated that the plot had links to the killing of a ‘Sikh activist’ – the Hardeep Singh Nijjar incident – in Canada. The indictment reads that Gupta reached out to the person he understood to be the hired killer and told him that Nijjar “was also the target” and that “we have so many targets.” Given Nijjar’s killing, Gupta added, there was “no need to wait” to kill the New York target. The day after that, the indictment says, the Indian official sent Gupta a news article and a message about the New York target that said “it” was a “priority now.” [caption id=“attachment_13447592” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Demonstrators holding flags and signs protest outside India’s consulate, a week after Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau raised the prospect of New Delhi’s involvement in the murder of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in Vancouver, British Columbia. File image/Reuters[/caption] But who is this Nikhil Gupta? Not too much is known about Nikhil Gupta other than that he is an Indian national living in the US. He was later arrested on 30 June by the Czech authorities pursuant to the bilateral extradition treaty between the United States and the Czech Republic. Gupta has now been charged with murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, with each count carrying a maximum statutory penalty of 10 years in prison. What have been the reactions? Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who has been declared as an individual terrorist in India, told the Financial Times that he believed he was the target of the Indian government because he was organising a referendum on whether Punjab should be an independent country. “The attempt on my life on American soil is a blatant case of India’s transnational terrorism, which has become a challenge to America’s sovereignty and threat to freedom of speech and democracy,” Pannun told Financial Times. “This is an indictment against Narendra Modi, a known human rights violator who has a track record of using violence to suppress criticism and dissenting political opinion,” Pannun added. As of now, the Indian side hasn’t issued a statement, but earlier on Wednesday announced that New Delhi had established “a high-level inquiry committee to look into all the relevant aspects of the matter”. Shortly after the indictment was reported, Canada’s Justin Trudeau urged India to collaborate in the inquiry in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar. He told reporters in Ottawa, “The Indian government needs to work with us to ensure that we’re getting to the bottom of this.” What are the implications of this indictment? The unsealed indictment could become a sticking point between New Delhi and Washington, DC. Moreover, it could lead to a worsening of ties between Canada and India. Stephanie Carvin, a professor of international relations at Carleton university told The Guardian, “It seems clear that these two plots were connected. Gupta had knowledge of what is alleged to have happened in British Columbia. And that’s significant because it means these weren’t ‘one-offs’ or inter communal fighting. The evidence is starting to point to a coordinated plot to attack Sikh activists in several countries.” She added that the indictment definitely lends credence to the Canadian case. “It will be interesting to see what the international response is going to be to these charges. Maybe, in light of this, Canada won’t feel as isolated as perhaps it did back in September,” she was quoted as saying. With inputs from agencies