US charges former Indian spy over plot to kill Sikh separatist in New York

Vikram Yadav, the second person to be charged in the case, worked for India's Research and Analysis Wing, Justice Department says

A United Hindu Front member holds a poster depicting Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who welcomed the charges brought against Vikram Yadav. AFP

The US has charged a former Indian intelligence officer with directing a failed plot to kill an American Sikh separatist leader, who is not being named by prosecutors, on its soil.

The Justice Department said it filed murder-for-hire and money-laundering charges against Vikash Yadav, 39, who officials have described as a former employee of the Indian government, as the alleged mastermind of a foiled assassination plot in New York City.

The department on Thursday said Mr Yadav had worked for "the government of India’s Cabinet Secretariat, which houses Indian’s foreign intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing". Mr Yadav, who remains at large, has described his position as a “senior field officer” with responsibilities in security management and intelligence, it said.

Mr Yadav is accused of directing Indian citizen Nikhil Gupta to hire a hitman "to assassinate on US soil an attorney and political activist who is a US citizen of Indian origin residing in New York City". Mr Gupta, 53, was arrested by Czech authorities in June last year and was charged and extradited to the US. He has pleaded not guilty and is being held at the federal Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn.

The intended victim has been described as "a vocal critic of the Indian government" and the leader of a US-based organisation that advocates the secession of Punjab, in northern India, to create a state called Khalistan. The Indian government has imposed sanctions on him and banned his organisation, the US said.

However, the target is widely believed to be Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a New York-based lawyer and prominent member of the Sikh community. Mr Pannun issued a statement welcoming the charges against Mr Yadav and calling the assassination plot a “blatant case of India’s transnational terrorism".

India’s External Affairs Ministry on Thursday said the person named in the US indictment was no longer associated with the government. "I confirm that he is no longer an employee of the government of India," spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said.

The assassination plot was allegedly hatched in May last year. US authorities say Mr Yadav brokered a deal with Mr Gupta to pay $100,000 to an undercover officer posing as a killer for hire.

“Yadav and Gupta arranged for an associate to deliver $15,000 in cash to the undercover officer as an advance payment for the murder,” the Justice Department said. "Yadav’s associate then delivered the $15,000 to the undercover officer in Manhattan."

The charges against the former Indian intelligence officer come at a time when New Delhi and Ottawa are locked in a diplomatic row over the assassination of another Sikh separatist leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in Canada.

Mr Nijjar, who was also designated a terrorist by India, was shot dead by two men outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Columbia in June last year.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has alleged that Indian agents were involved in the killing and on Monday increased the tension between the countries when he named Indian High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma as a “person of interest”. Mr Trudeau admitted on Wednesday, however, that there was “no hard evidentiary proof” and the allegations were based on intelligence.