Indian businessman and alleged drug trafficker Nikhil Gupta (54) — arrested in 2023 and presently in detention in New York — has pleaded guilty before a United States magistrate judge on three counts: ‘murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit money laundering’.

This in connection with the attempted assassination of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a New York-based American citizen who is general counsel for ‘Sikhs for Justice’, a body that demands that an independent state of ‘Khalistan’ be carved out of India.

The Indian government denied any connection to Gupta or Vikash Yadav, a former employee of the external intelligence agency R&AW, who allegedly supplied the target and the funds to hire an assassin in the US.

Gupta’s family struggled to fund his defence; had he not pleaded guilty, he would have faced a criminal trial which would have meant being cross-examined and confronting evidence.

The sub-title of a press note circulated by the US Attorney’s Office after Gupta’s admission reads, in bold, ‘Nikhil Gupta worked at the Direction of an Indian Government Employee to Arrange the Murder of US-based Leader of Sikh Separatist Movement.’

That and the contents of the document rattled the nerve centre of India’s espionage establishment.

The FBI’s assistant director in charge, James Barnacle, Jr. is quoted as saying: ‘At the direction and coordination of an Indian government employee, Nikhil Gupta plotted to assassinate a United States citizen on American soil.’

The note named ‘VIKASH YADAV’ as that Indian government employee and a ‘co-defendant’ in the case, describing him as being ‘at relevant times an Indian government employee, to plot the assassination of an attorney and political activist (Pannun)’.

It further specified: ‘YADAV was employed by the Government of India’s Cabinet Secretariat, which houses India’s foreign intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW).’

It continued: ‘In or about June 2023, YADAV recruited GUPTA to........

© National Herald