Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a 56-year-old dual US-Canadian citizen, speaks during an interview in New York.
Credit: Reuters Photo
Washington: President Joe Biden’s administration in Washington DC wants New Delhi to ensure that its inquiry into the allegation about the role of an officer of the Government of India in a foiled plot to kill Khalistani Sikh extremist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in the United States should lead to “meaningful accountability”.
The US officials last week had a meeting in Washington DC with the members of an inquiry committee constituted by the Government of India to probe the allegation that one of its officials – now identified as the RAW officer Vikash Yadav – had instructed Nikhil Gupta, arrested in Prague in June 2023 and now incarcerated in a prison in Brooklyn, to hire a hitman to kill Pannun, a leader of the Sikhs for Justice, in New York.
“So, to take a step back, there was valuable engagement with India’s inquiry committee last week, and information was exchanged between our two governments to further our respective investigations,” Vedant Patel, the spokesperson of the US State Department, said.
New Delhi conveyed to Washington DC that Yadav, who had been indicted in a US court on October 17, was no longer in the service of the Government of India.
“We understand that the Indian inquiry committee will continue its investigation, and we expect to see further steps based on last week’s conversations,” Patel said in response to a query during a media briefing in Washington DC on Tuesday. “We continue to expect and want to see accountability based on the results of that investigation, and certainly the United States won’t be fully satisfied until there is meaningful accountability resulting from that investigation,” added the spokesperson of the US State Department.
The US last week indicted Yadav, a former officer of India’s external intelligence agency, Research and Analytical Wing (RAW), for directing a foiled plot to murder Khalistani Sikh extremist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York in June 2023.
The move by the US Department of Justice came even as New Delhi over the past few days repeatedly dismissed allegations by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government in Ottawa about the role of India’s diplomats in targeting Khalistani Sikh extremists in Canada.
The indictment unsealed at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York late on October 17 identified the accused as Vikash Yadav and alleged that he had been an employee of the Cabinet Secretariat of the Government of India while plotting to kill Pannun.
The indictment also noted that the Cabinet Secretariat housed the RAW, the foreign intelligence service of India. He was accused of asking Nikhil Gupta to hire a hitman to kill Pannun, an American Sikh, known for playing a lead role in reviving the global campaign for the secession of Khalistan from India.
The US move to accuse a former RAW officer of being involved with the plot to kill Pannun came just days after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government in Ottawa had made an attempt to bring India’s High Commissioner to Canada, Sanjay Kumar Verma, and his five colleagues within the ambit of a police investigation into the role of New Delhi in the June 18, 2023, murder of another Khalistani Sikh extremist, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in the British Columbia province of the North American country.
New Delhi decided to withdraw Verma and his five colleagues from Ottawa and retaliated by expelling six diplomats of Canada from India.