WASHINGTON: The United States has charged a former Indian intelligence officer for allegedly directing a foiled plot to murder a Sikh separatist and Indian critic in New York City, with the FBI warning against such a retaliation aimed at a US resident.

An indictment of Vikash Yadav was ordered to be unsealed on Thursday. The US Justice Department indictment mentioned Yadav as a former officer in India’s spy agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

Washington has alleged that Indian agents were involved in an attempted assassination plot against Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a dual US-Canadian citizen.

“The FBI will not tolerate acts of violence or other efforts to retaliate against those residing in the US for exercising their constitutionally protected rights,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement.

WaPo reports Vikash Yadav is still in India, Washington expected to seek his extradition

The indictment alleged that beginning in May 2023, Yadav, described as an employee of the Indian government at the time, worked together with others in India and abroad to direct a plot against Pannun. The indictment described Pannun as a political activist, a critic of the Indian government and an advocate for a separate homeland for Sikhs.

Yadav, 39, is still in India and the United States was expected to seek his extradition, the Washington Post reported, citing American officials.

The indictment said Yadav had hired an Indian national named Nikhil Gupta whom the US Justice Department has previously charged with trying to arrange the murder of Pannun at the behest of the Indian intelligence official.

Yadav recruited Gupta “to orchestrate the assassination of the victim in the United States,” the indictment, filed in federal court in Manhattan, said.

Gupta traveled to Prague from India last June and was arrested by Czech authorities before being extradited to the U.S. where he pleaded not guilty in a court in June.

The indictment on Thursday charged Yadav with “murder-for-hire and money laundering.”

In a statement on Thursday, Pannun welcomed the indictment of Yadav, but described him as a “mid-tier soldier” who the Sikh separatist alleged was assigned by Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and then RAW Chief Samant Goel as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal to dismantle Sikh separatism.

An Indian government committee investigating Indian involvement in the foiled murder plot met with US officials in Washington on Tuesday, a meeting that Washington described as productive.

Without giving further details, the State Department said on Wednesday that India informed the US that “the individual who was named in the Justice Department indictment is no longer an employee of the Indian government.”

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2024