Indian man accused of plot to assassinate US activist pleads guilty

The Indian man who US prosecutors accused of plotting to kill a prominent US-based activist after being recruited by an agent of the Indian government has pleaded guilty to three criminal charges, according to a spokesperson for the US attorney’s office in Manhattan.Nikhil Gupta faces a maximum 40 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, and money-laundering charges in connection to the failed attempt to assassinate Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a US resident who is an advocate for a sovereign Sikh state in northern India.“Nikhil Gupta plotted to assassinate a US citizen in New York City,” said US attorney Jay Clayton. “He thought that from outside this country he could kill someone in it without consequence, simply for exercising their American right to free speech. But he was wrong, and he will face justice. Our message to all nefarious foreign actors should be clear: steer clear of the United States and our people.”James Barnacle, the FBI assistant director in charge, added that Gupta had worked “at the direction and coordination of an Indian government employee”.Pannun, who serves as a lawyer at a New York-based group called Sikhs for Justice, said in a statement that the guilty plea was “judicial confirmation” that the Indian government of Narendra Modi orchestrated an assassination plot on American soil.“The Indian government targeted an American citizen for exercising first amendment rights – organizing the Khalistan referendum, a peaceful political campaign advocating self-determination for Punjab … The Modi government’s transnational assassination plots to silence dissenting political opinion is an act of terrorism and attack on America’s sovereignty,” he said.The news marks a stunning development in a case that began in June 2023, when another high-profile Sikh activist named Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead outside a Sikh temple in British Columbia, Canada. Justin Trudeau, who served as Canada’s prime minister at the time, said months after the murder that there were “credible allegations” that agents of the Indian government had carried out the killing.India called the accusation “absurd” and politically motivated. But Trudeau’s allegation gained credibility in November that year, when the US attorney’s office in New York unsealed an indictment against Gupta, and announced he was being extradited back to the US from the Czech Republic.Gupta was described at the time as an Indian national who resided in India and was an associate of an Indian government official – later identified as Vikash Yadav – who had recruited Gupta to orchestrate the assassination of Pannun, an American citizen, on US soil.Yadav was also indicted but remains at large and is a subject of a federal arrest warrant.When Gupta contacted an individual to carry out the murder, he believed he was contacting a criminal associate. In fact, the individual was a described as a confidential source working with the US Drug Enforcement Administration, US prosecutors said.India’s government has dissociated itself from any plot against Pannun, saying it was against government policy, according to Reuters.In his statement, Pannum said: “The Modi government’s claim that [the] murder-for-hire conspiracy was the act of a ‘rogue agent’ collapses under the weight of the evidence presented in federal court.”The news follows a significant development in US-India relations earlier this month, after Donald Trump claimed that India had agreed to stop buying Russian oil and that he agreed to cut US tariffs on India exports. In a post, Trump called the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, “one of my greatest friends”. US officials have said that there is no evidence that Modi was aware of the plot, the New York Times reported.