TOI Correspondent from Washington: The statement accompanying the indictment filed by US department of justice against former RAW operative Vikash Yadav in connection with the alleged plot to assassinate pro-Khalistan extremist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York also suggested Washington is making an example of the episode to broadcast a larger message to other nations, notably China and Russia, which have also been accused of conducting transnational operations against dissenters they regard as anti-national.
Today’s charges are a grave example of the increase in lethal plotting and other forms of violent transnational repression targeting diaspora communities in the United States, the statement said, adding: To the govts around the world who may be considering such criminal activity and to the communities they would target, let there be no doubt that the DoJ is committed to disrupting and exposing these plots and to holding the wrongful actors accountable no matter who they are or where they reside.
According to the indictment, in or about May 2023, Yadav recruited Nikhil Gupta, an Indian national allegedly involved in international narcotics and weapons trafficking, to orchestrate Pannun’s assassination. At Yadav’s direction, Gupta contacted an individual whom Gupta believed to be a criminal associate, but who was in fact a confidential source (CS) working with the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), for assistance in contracting a hitman to murder the victim in New York City.
The CS then introduced Gupta to a purported hitman, who was in fact a DEA undercover officer, it said. Yadav subsequently agreed, in dealings brokered by Gupta, to pay the hitman $100,000 to murder the victim, of which $15,000 in cash was delivered to the undercover agent as an advance. The indictment contained a close-up photo of the money changing hands.
The indictment said Nikhil Gupta also instructed the undercover agent not to commit the murder around the time of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official state visit to the US, which was scheduled to begin on June 20, 2023. Yadav’s recruitment of Gupta to orchestrate the hit job was in exchange for assistance in securing the dismissal of a criminal case against Gupta in India, it said.
Gupta was arrested in Prague earlier this year and extradited to the US, where he has pleaded not guilty ahead of an expected trial.