Washington The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has named and indicted a then-current and former Indian government official for leading the plot to assassinate Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a U.S. citizen whom India has designated as terrorist, in New York in June. 2023.

The 18-page indictment, unsealed Thursday evening Eastern Time (Friday IST), charges former Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) staffer Vikash Yadav with three counts of charges of murder for hire, conspiracy to commit murder for hire and money laundering. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released a wanted poster, with three photographs of Yadav, which offers more biographical details about the 39-year-old Haryana-born former officer, who also went by the name ‘Amanat’ during the investigation. operation.

A New York court issued a federal arrest warrant for Yadav on October 10.

Yadav is the man identified in a previous DOJ indictment as “CC-1” who allegedly hired an intermediary Nikhil Gupta to hire an assassin who turned out to be a US law enforcement agent, in order to kill Pannun. The new indictment states that Yadav, who was deputy commander of the Central Reserve Police Force, was working in the cabinet secretariat that houses RAW, at the time of orchestrating this plot in May-June 2023. Yadav , according to the indictment, described himself as a “senior field officer” with responsibilities in security and intelligence management.

The indictment calls Pannun a “vocal critic of the Indian government” who leads a U.S.-based political organization calling for the secession of Punjab and acknowledges that India banned his separatist organization. The FBI poster summarizing the case calls Pannun a political activist exercising his First Amendment rights. The indictment and FBI descriptions ignore Pannun’s violent activities and his status as a wanted terrorist in India.

The new indictment is rich in detail and explains how Yadav allegedly orchestrated the plot.

It alleges that around May 2023, Yadav recruited Gupta, who admitted to involvement in international drug and arms trafficking in communication with Yadav, to have Pannun killed in the United States.

“At Yadav’s direction,” Gupta contacted a criminal associate (CS) to help hire a hitman for the murder, but CS turned out to be a “confidential source” to U.S. law enforcement . CS introduced Gupta to the hitman, who turned out to be a US law enforcement (UC) official. The indictment states that “Yadav subsequently agreed,” under deals brokered by Gupta, to pay UC 100,000 for this work. Through an “associate of Yadav,” they also arranged for $15,000 to be paid to UC in Manhattan.

In June, Yadav gave personal information regarding Pannun to Gupta. This included Pannun’s address, phone numbers and daily routine, which Gupta passed on to UC. Yadav also asked Gupta to provide “regular updates”. Gupta passed surveillance photos of Pannun taken by UC to Yadav.

Gupta asked the UC to carry out the assassination as soon as possible, but not at the time of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to the US in the third week of June. However, on June 18, a gunman killed Hardeep Singh Nijjar, another separatist designated by India as a terrorist, in Canada. Yadav sent Gupta a photo of Nijjar’s body and told Gupta that Nijjar had been “also a target”, that they had “many targets”, and said there was no need to wait any longer .

The indictment includes textual exchanges between Yadav and Gupta, including Yadav’s assurance to Gupta that his case had been settled in Gujarat, presumably quid pro quo for Gupta’s involvement. It includes messages in which Yadav pushes Gupta to speed up the assassination. It includes messages between Gupta and UC, and Gupta and CS, with details of negotiations over the money, and between Yadav and Gupta on how the money was to be arranged. And it includes messages in which Yadav flatly tells Gupta to tell his hitman to prepare to kill Pannun at his home or office around the end of June.

The plot did not come to fruition. Gupta was arrested in Prague on June 30, 2023, at the request of the US government for his involvement in the plot. Last year, the DOJ issued its first indictment in the case accusing Gupta. In June this year, he was extradited to the United States, where his trial is expected to begin soon.

On Monday, four days after the arrest warrant for Yadav was issued, HT reported that India had told the United States that he was no longer a government employee, a fact that the State Department then the Foreign Office confirmed this week. An Indian commission of inquiry set up to investigate the allegations also visited Washington DC this week and exchanged information with US officials, in a meeting the State Department described as productive.

All of this suggests that the United States and India have been closely engaged on the issue and explains Yadav’s dismissal from the civil service, although neither the exact time of this dismissal nor the grounds on which he was arrested are clear. It is also not known whether he was arrested and, if so, on what grounds. In March this year, Bloomberg reported that CC1 had been transferred from R&AW. And in April, the Washington Post reported that CC-1 was named Vikram Yadav.

But with the new indictment directly accusing a then-Indian government official, the Pannun plot has taken a turn that could impact both India’s security apparatus and India-US relations for the years to come.

These developments come at a time when relations between India and Canada are deteriorating. In September 2023, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alleged that there were links between Indian government agents and the assassination of pro-Khalistan separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. India has argued that Canada has not shared any evidence, with Trudeau himself saying he only had intelligence but no evidence to support his claims. Canada then asked India last week to lift the immunity of its diplomats in Ottawa, including the high commissioner, so that they could investigate them, a request that India rejected out of hand. . Delhi has decided to recall its diplomats and expel six Canadian diplomats.

All of America’s top law enforcement officials have issued a strong joint statement that the United States will not tolerate such actions on its soil. “The Department of Justice will work tirelessly to hold accountable anyone – regardless of position or proximity to power – who seeks to harm and silence American citizens,” the US attorney general said Thursday Merrick B Garland in a DOJ release.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said: “The defendant, an Indian government employee, allegedly conspired with a criminal associate and attempted to murder a United States citizen on American soil for exercising his First Amendment rights. The FBI will not tolerate acts of violence or other retaliatory efforts. against those who reside in the United States for exercising their constitutionally protected rights.

Wray, who visited India after the DOJ’s initial indictment, added that the FBI was committed to working with its partners to “detect, disrupt and hold accountable foreign nationals or others who seek to engage in such acts of transnational repression.”

India was yet to respond to the latest indictment.