Former Indian spy rejects US charge in Sikh separatist murder plot, family says

Vikash Yadav is accused of masterminding a murder-for-hire plot against Sikh dissident Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York

A former Indian intelligence officer charged with directing a foiled assassination plot against a Sikh separatist leader in New York last year rejects the accusations, his family said.

Vikash Yadav, a former officer in India’s foreign intelligence service who was named by federal prosecutors for the first time in an unsealed indictment on Thursday, is charged with money laundering, conspiracy, and leading a murder-for-hire scheme.

According to the indictment, Mr Yadav was an officer in the Research and Analysis Wing, which is directly overseen by the Prime Minister’s Office.

India says it is investigating the allegations. It also claims that Mr Yadav is no longer a government employee, but won’t confirm if he has ever been an intelligence officer.

Mr Yadav’s cousin Avinash Yadav spoke to Reuters on Saturday at their ancestral village, Pranpura, some 100km from the capital New Delhi.

He said he had discussed the murder plot allegations with Mr Yadav, who described them as false media reports.

Avinash said he spoke to his cousin regularly but Mr Yadav had never said anything about being an intelligence officer.

“The family has no information. He never mentioned anything about it,” he said, referring to Mr Yadav’s supposed employment with the spy service.

“For us he is still working for the CRPF. He told us he is deputy commandant.” The CRPF is the Central Reserve Police Force, a federal paramilitary that Mr Yadav joined in 2009.

The cousin said he didn’t know Mr Yadav’s whereabouts, only that he lived with his wife and a daughter who was born last year.

A ‘wanted’ poster provided by the FBI shows Vikash Yadav who is criminally charged in connection with a foiled plot to kill a US citizen and Indian dissident in New York (AP)

Mr Yadav and his alleged co-conspirator, Nikhil Gupta, are accused of plotting the murder of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a American and Canadian citizen who founded Sikhs for Justice which advocates for the creation of an independent Sikh homeland called Khalistan in northwestern India.

The organisation is banned in India, which has designated Mr Pannun a “terrorist”.

Mr Gupta, who was extradited to the US from the Czech Republic earlier this year, is lodged in a Brooklyn jail. He has pleaded not guilty.

Mr Yadav was arrested in New Delhi on 18 December last year, a police officer told Reuters on condition of anonymity. He and an associate were charged with attempted murder, according to a filing in a Delhi district court.

Mr Yadav’s lawyer, RK Hindoo, said the charges brought against his client by Delhi police were “fallacious” and that there was “an international plot to bring shame on the government of India and my client”.

It is not known where Mr Yadav is now. The Washington Post, citing American officials, reported that he was still in India and that the US would seek his extradition.

“He has been working for the country,” Mr Yadav’s mother Sudesh Yadav said.

The indictment against Mr Yadav is a “grave example of the increase in lethal plotting and other forms of violent transnational repression targeting diaspora communities in the United States,” assistant attorney general Matthew Olsen of the US Justice Department said in a statement.

The accusations against Mr Yadav and Mr Gupta that seemingly implicate the Indian government follow similar charges made by Canada over the assassination of a Sikh separatist leader in June 2023.

India rejects the “preposterous imputations” made by Canadian authorities and decries it a political agenda of the Justin Trudeau government.

Canada has expelled six Indian diplomats, including high commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma, “in relation to a targeted campaign against Canadian citizens by agents linked to the Government of India”.

New Delhi has retaliated by ordering the expulsion of six Canadian diplomats, including acting high commissioner Stewart Ross Wheeler.