Prosecutors in the United States have charged an Indian man with a foiled plot to kill a Sikh militant in New York days after a row between Canada and India over similar accusations.
Last Thursday, the US Justice Department named Vikash Yadav as the Indian intelligence official and charged him for his alleged role in the June 2023 plot to kill Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a US citizen.
The Indian government responded, saying that it no longer employed Yadav.
His lawyers insisted on his innocence.
“The accusations are baseless and part of a larger international conspiracy against India,” media quoted lawyer R.K. Handoo as saying.
But US ambassador Eric Garcetti argued Yadav may have crossed a red line. “People in Washington will only be satisfied when accountability is achieved,” he said.
“I’d expect that the Indian system, just like the American system, knows that murder-for-hire plots are illegal and will hold people accountable.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington said the US will pursue Yadav for the plot against the Sikh separatist who on Monday warned of attacks on Air India flights next month.
Pannun, a US citizen, also warned India’s busiest international airport in Delhi will remain closed on 19 November.
Last year, US prosecutors in a first indictment named Yadav as co-conspirator. Weeks later, Yadav was arrested in India in unrelated cases.
Co-conspirator Nikhil Gupta was previously charged and extradited from the Czech Republic. The 53-year-old is incarcerated in the US.
Washington’s decision to charge Yadav is likely to spur tensions between India and the West, following the tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats from Canada and India.
Ruined ties
Ottawa expelled six Indian diplomats after police on 14 October named them as “persons of interest” in a probe into the June 2023 assassination of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Najjar in British Columbia.
India, denying the allegations, booted out six Canadian diplomats amid worsening ties with Canada, home to a 771,000-strong Sikh community.
The Canadian government also placed remaining Indian diplomats in country “on notice.”
“We will never tolerate the involvement of a foreign government threatening and killing Canadian citizens on Canadian soil, a deeply unacceptable violation of Canada’s sovereignty and of international law,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.
He alleged Indian agents shot and killed Nijjar, a designated terrorist in India.
The list of allegations includes the purported use of criminal gangs by Delhi to carry out its work.
Details
Further details have not been given but Canada's Foreign Minister, Mélanie Joly, insisted “ample, clear and concrete evidence” led to the government's action.
On Monday, Indian Foreign Minister, Subramanyam Jaishankar, accused Canadian authorities of hypocrisy as Delhi asserted the allegations were designed to boost Trudeau's domestic image.
“They seem to have a problem if Indian diplomats are even trying to make efforts to find out what is happening in Canada on matters which directly pertain to their welfare and security,” Jaishankar told a meeting.
“But look what happens in India. Canadian diplomats have no problem going around collecting information on our military, police, profiling people, targeting people to be stopped in Canada.
“So apparently, the licence that they give themselves is totally different from the kind of restrictions that they impose on diplomats in Canada," Jaishankar added.
Bilateral ties have never been easy since Sikh militants in 1985 blew up an Air India plane with 329 people on board in the deadliest terror strike in Canada’s history.
The Sikh homeland drive, which claimed thousands of lives in India, waned in the 1990s but the Indian government fears separatists are trying to revive the campaign.
