Indian national and government officer linked in plot to kill Sikh in NY

An international narcotics trafficker conspired with a purported Indian government official in a $100,000 plot to assassinate a Sikh separatist leader in New York City, according to an indictment announced Wednesday by federal prosecutors.

Nikhil Gupta, 52, an Indian national with self-described ties to drug and weapons trafficking, faces charges of murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire for his alleged role in the New York plot, according to the indictment. He is accused of plotting with an unnamed Indian government official who variously described himself as a "Senior Field Officer" with responsibilities in intelligence, and as a former member of India’s Central Reserve Police Force.

Gupta, who lives in India, was arrested in the Czech Republic in June on the request of U.S. officials and is awaiting extradition, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York. The alleged murder plot was disrupted by U.S. law enforcement, allegedly with the assistance of an undercover officer who posed as a hitman.

The revelation of the alleged plot, against a U.S. citizen who has supported a Sikh separatist movement in India, follows the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist in Canada in June. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused the Indian government of carrying out that killing, with which India vehemently denied involvement.

“As alleged, the defendant conspired from India to assassinate, right here in New York City, a U.S. citizen of Indian origin who has publicly advocated for the establishment of a sovereign state for Sikhs, an ethnoreligious minority group in India,” said U.S. Attorney Damien Williams, who leads the Southern District, based in Manhattan.

The indictment only describes the intended target of the assassination plot as the U.S.-based leader of the Sikh separatist movement. Multiple news organizations, including The Associated Press and the New York Times, identified the intended victim as Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a New York-based activist who has been part of the Sikh separatist movement for years and is part of a local organization called Sikhs for Justice.

A call to the organization on Wednesday went straight to voicemail, but Pannun told The AP in an interview Wednesday, “I’m not afraid of the physical death.”

If his death is the cost of running a campaign to secure Sikh independence, “I’m willing to pay that price,” he told The AP.

The announcement of the alleged plot has sent fear through the Sikh diaspora, said Harinder Singh, a senior fellow at the Sikh Research Institute, based in Hackettstown, N.J. There are an estimated 50,000 to 80,000 Sikhs living in the five boroughs.

Singh said the FBI and Australian law enforcement issued advisories in March on possible threats to Sikh diasporic communities. While the incidents in Canada and the U.S. have involved people advocating for the creation of Khalistan, an imagined homeland for Sikhs, he said many Sikh Americans who don’t support the separatist cause worry that they’ll inadvertently come into harm’s way.

“How do they know who's who?” asked Singh. “The threat of violence has become very, very real for Sikhs in America now.”

The Indian government has spent decades trying to quell the Sikh separatist movement, but Singh said that Western leaders in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand have “started calling India out” for targeting people even for peaceful expression.

“Look, you can't be killing people for their views in democracies, especially Western democracies,” he said.

The White House was first made aware of the plot in July, according to The AP, and initiated high-level discussions with Indian government officials. President Joe Biden also raised the issue with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the G20 Summit in New Delhi in September, according to the AP. India subsequently set up a high-level inquiry.

Mark Juergensmeyer, a scholar who has studied religion and conflict in South Asia, said political tensions in India “are mirrored in acrimonious relations among segments of the Indian diaspora community” in the U.S. and Canada.

“This includes pro-Khalistan Sikhs and pro-Hindu nationalist supporters of Modi, both of whom are outspoken members of the diaspora community,” said Juergensmeyer, a distinguished professor emeritus of global studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “What is less clear is whether the Modi government played a direct role in these recent incidents or whether they were solely the efforts of lower level employees and supporters.”

Arjun Sethi, a human rights lawyer and adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said the revelations raise serious questions about the nature of U.S.-India relations at a time when the two countries have openly courted each other.

“Why did Biden celebrate Modi with a state dinner and Congress honor him with a joint address,” asked Sethi, “all while his government was conspiring to assassinate a Sikh American on U.S. soil?”