Gupta Pleads Guilty, Punctures India’s Foreign & Home Ministry’s Long Denial

Nikhil Gupta has pleaded guilty to three charges linked to a failed assasination attempt on Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun at a US federal court hearing in New York. 54-year-old Gupta is an Indian citizen and is described as a drug and weapon trafficker. He was arrested in June 2023 in the Czech Republic and extradited to the US. Gupta had hired an assassin to kill Pannun, legal counsel of Sikhs For Justice. The assassin turned out to be an undercover agent of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The US had charged Gupta on three counts: murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. By pleading guilty, Gupta has accepted that he hired an assassin to kill Pannun, on the orders of Vikash Yadav, an officer with India’s external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). The US Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York released a statement in which Federal Bureau of Intelligence’s (FBI) Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky said, 'The US citizen became a target of transnational repression solely for exercising their freedom of speech. The message from the FBI should be clear—no matter where you are located, if you try to harm our citizens we will not stop until you are brought to justice.' India has long denied involvement in the plan but Gupta’s plea punctures that denial. However, Gupta’s pleading guilty would not end the matter. The US could ask for the extradition of former Assistant Commandant in the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Yadav that could point fingers at India's Cabinet Secretariat which oversees RAW’s operation. India claims Yadav has gone rogue and no longer works for CRPF or RAW. Though India also continues to deny involvement in the killing of separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, Canada in June 2023, Gupta told the undercover DEA agent that Nijjar 'was also a target.' This raises questions about India's democratic values and its intelligence overreach in friendly countries. The question now is India’s accountability and institutional control and how it is perceived by the West. Gupta will be sentenced on 29 May and could face up to 40 years in prison (earlier coverage).