Who is Vikash Yadav, Indian agent accused by US in Sikh assassination plot?

The United States government on Thursday unsealed an indictment against Vikash Yadav, a former Indian intelligence officer, accusing him of spearheading a failed plot to murder Indian-American Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on US soil in 2023.

The unveiling of the charges was accompanied by a series of stern comments from top US law enforcement officials, including Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray, saying Washington would not tolerate a foreign national targeting American citizens.

The case has muddied waters for India and the US, close partners who both see China as a principal rival, and comes at a time when New Delhi is also locked in tensions with Canada over similar allegations.

Here is what we know about Yadav, what he is accused of, where India fits in, and why all this matters.

Who is Vikash Yadav?

Yadav, a resident and citizen of India, directed an Indian man, Nikhil Gupta, around May 2023 to orchestrate the killing of Pannun, the US alleges.

According to the indictment unsealed on Thursday, Yadav, 39, is also known by the name Vikas and goes by the alias Amanat.

The indictment alleges that Yadav was employed by the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India’s external intelligence agency. It described Yadav as a “Senior Field Officer” working in security management and intelligence.

The US document also says Yadav has worked for India’s largest paramilitary force, the Central Reserve Police Force, as an “Assistant Commandment”.

Yadav provided his co-conspirator, Gupta, with details about Pannun’s home address in New York, his phone number and his day-to-day conduct, the document alleges.

“Yadav remains at large,” a news release by the US Department of Justice said. He has not been captured and is believed to be in India. It is not known if the US has sought his extradition from India yet.

Justice Department Announces Charges Against Indian Government Employee in Connection with Foiled Plot to Assassinate U.S. Citizen in New York City https://t.co/80PSJB0q8M @NewYorkFBI pic.twitter.com/Qc6NniIFQd

— FBI (@FBI) October 17, 2024

How did the Indian government respond?

On Thursday, Randhir Jaiswal, a spokesperson for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, told a news briefing “the individual who was named in the Justice Department indictment is no longer an employee of the Government of India.”

In essence, Jaiswal however confirmed that Yadav had indeed been an employee of the Indian government.

India has previously said it is carrying out its own internal investigation into the allegations that its agents tried to assassinate Pannun. It has distanced itself from the plot, saying it does not conduct extra-territorial killings, suggesting that even if any Indian nationals were involved in a plan to kill Pannun, they were not authorised by the top levels of the government.

What happened to Gurpatwant Singh Pannun?

In November 2023, the US thwarted a plot to kill Pannun. On November 29, 2023, the US revealed in an earlier indictment saying Indian resident Gupta, 53, was an associate of an Indian government agency employee identified only as “CC-1”.

With the new indictment, CC-1 is now revealed to be Yadav. It alleged that Yadav directed the murder plan from India and recruited Gupta in May 2023 for the job.

Gupta was directed to hire a hitman to murder Pannun. Gupta ended up hiring a man who, unbeknown to him, was an undercover law enforcement officer working for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

Gupta agreed to pay the hitman $100,000, giving him an advance of $15,000 in cash in Manhattan around June 9, 2023. This was a deal Yadav agreed to, the new indictment adds.

On June 18, 2023, masked gunmen murdered Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar outside a Sikh temple in Canada’s British Columbia. The Thursday indictment describes Nijjar as an associate of Pannun. It further adds that Yadav sent Gupta a video of Nijjar’s “bloody body”.

The new indictment says Gupta told the undercover DEA officer that Nijjar “was also the target” and “we have so many targets.”

Yadav, the US alleges, instructed Gupta that the murder of Pannun should not take place on the same day as the state visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the US on June 20, 2023, or the days leading up to it.

Gupta was arrested by Czech authorities on June 30, 2023.

In June 2024, Gupta was extradited to the US, where he pleaded “not guilty”, in a New York court, of involvement in the murder-for-hire plot.

How did Pannun respond to this?

Pannun released a statement on his X account saying that by indicting Yadav, the “US Government has reassured its commitment to fundamental constitutional duty to protect the life, liberty and freedom of expression of the US Citizen at home and abroad.”

In his statement, Pannun claimed that Yadav “is a mid tier soldier” who was instructed by Ajit Doval, national security advisor of India, and RAW chief Samant Goel to murder him “as part of Modi regime’s policy to violently suppress the Khalistan Referendum campaign which aims secession of Punjab from India through democratic means”.

The Khalistan movement aims to have a separate Sikh state comprising Indian-held Punjab and other Punjabi-speaking regions in northern India. Khalistan is the name proposed for the state.

At the time of his death, Nijjar was also organising an unofficial referendum for Khalistan.

In his latest statement, Pannun said assassination attempts on his life would not deter him from organising for Khalistan. He added that he would organise a referendum for Khalistan among the Sikh diaspora in Auckland, New Zealand, on November 17.

On September 18, Pannun filed a lawsuit against the Indian government as well as National Security Advisor Doval, RAW chief Goel, Yadav and Gupta. They were all summoned to a US district court for the southern district of New York.

While Indian PM Modi and other Indian officials visited New York for the United Nations General Assembly between September 20 to September 27, Doval dropped out of the visit and stayed back in India.

Why is this significant now?

The new US indictment comes while India and Canada are at loggerheads over Nijjar’s murder.

On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) revealed “clear and compelling evidence” that Indian government agents had plotted Nijjar’s assassination. Trudeau and the RCMP subsequently accused the Indian government of hiring hitmen from a notorious Indian gang, run by a jailed mobster known as Lawrence Bishnoi, to kill Sikh dissidents in the Canadian diaspora.

Ottawa expelled Indian high commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma, alongside five other Indian diplomats on Monday. In response, New Delhi ordered the expulsion of six Canadian diplomats – including the acting high commissioner – and gave them until Saturday to leave the country.