KEY POINTS
- India called it a "matter of conern" after the U.S. announced charges against Indian national Nikhil Gupta, 52
- Gupta was accused of being involved in an assassination attempt of Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun
- Reports last week revealed that U.S. authorities managed to foil the assassination plot
India expressed concern in response to the United States pressing charges against an Indian government employee for allegedly directing an assassination plot to kill a Sikh separatist on U.S. soil.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced murder-for-hire charges against 52-year-old Indian national Nikhil Gupta, aka Nick, for his alleged involvement in a plot to assassinate Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York.
"As regards the case against an individual that has been filed in a U.S. court, allegedly linking him to an Indian official, this is a matter of concern. We have said that this is also contrary to government policy," India's foreign ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said Thursday.
"The nexus between organized crime, trafficking, gunrunning and extremists at an international level is a serious issue for the law enforcement agencies and organizations to consider and it is for that reason that a high-level inquiry committee has been constituted and we will be guided by its results," Bagchi told reporters Thursday.
After U.S. authorities thwarting the assassination plot came to light last week, India announced Wednesday it would conduct a formal investigation and take the necessary follow-up action.
In a Wednesday statement, the Justice Department said Indian national Gupta was an employee of the Indian government, and held responsibilities related to security and intelligence.
He is accused of working with others in directing the plot to assassinate "an attorney and political activist who is a U.S. citizen of Indian origin residing in New York City (the Victim)," the Department of Justice statement said.
Prosecutors said Gupta was hired by an Indian official in or around May 2023 to orchestrate the assassination.
Pannun, who was allegedly the target of the assassination plot, was an Indian-born lawyer, previously declared a terrorist by the Indian government and facing criminal charges in India, including sedition.
Founder of the pro-Khalistani group Sikhs for Justice, Pannun has been building a network of pro-Khalistan supporters in the U.S. and Canada for years to advocate for the Khalistani movement, which demands a separate homeland for Sikhs in the Indian state of Punjab.
"The Victim is a vocal critic of the Indian government and leads a U.S.-based organization that advocates for the secession of Punjab, a state in northern India that is home to a large population of Sikhs, an ethnoreligious minority group in India," the Department of Justice said.
The alleged attempt on his life was a "blatant case of India's transnational terrorism, which has become a challenge to America's sovereignty and threat to freedom of speech and democracy," Pannun told Reuters after the indictment.
