It reads like a Bollywood script and includes twists and turns that seem mysterious. Despite multiple unknowns today, the foiled plot to assassinate the Sikh based in New York has severe implications for the relationship between two large democracies in the year ahead
By Kenneth Tiven
In mid-June, a murder near Vancouver, Canada, became a flashpoint in relations between Canada and India. Two masked gunmen fled as Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar died in his truck. Canadian police quickly described it as a political hit job, given the intensity among some Canadian Sikhs for a Punjab nation they call Khalistan. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called it an extra-judicial event, breaking diplomatic etiquette to publicly blame the Indian government, which denied it.
Sources in Canada at the time said intelligence information from US sources played a role in defining it as a state-sponsored crime. Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi’s government denied it all, calling it “absurd”. Clues about the information used in the Canadian Sikh murder case may have emerged this week in a federal indictment made public in a Manhattan courtroom. Calling it the foiled plot to assassinate a US citizen, four top US federal officials jointly announced the filing of murder-for-hire charges against Indian national Nikhil Gupta, aka “Nick.” It said he coordinated a plot to assassinate Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a dual US-Indian citizen, in New York City. A somewhat vague timeline of events was offered, which wraps around the date of the Vancouver Sikh murder. Surprisingly, it says Gupta was arrested in late June in Prague in the Czech Republic. He sits there now, awaiting extradition to the USA.
The feds claim he organized the planned killing of Pannun. FBI Assistant Director in Charge James Smith stated: “Murder for hire is a crime out of a movie, but the plot was all too real. The excellent teamwork of the law enforcement partners in this case exposed this brazen conspiracy.” Actually, it was more than arrange; they orchestrated most of what took place. Before Gupta’s hitman acted against Pannun, a vocal supporter of Khalistan, the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada in mid-June confirmed to DEA specialists that their intelligence efforts were on the right track. It seems logical to think that whatever they knew then, they communicated to the Canadians after Nijjar was killed.
The DEA says its involvement started when it received a tip in March from an Indian drug dealer in another case who was also an informant. It seemed too important to ignore. Apparently, Gupta had asked this friend, whom he did not know was working for DEA, about a recommendation for an assassin for “a hit job in the USA”. The DEA, in apparent conjunction with other agencies, decided to create an “assassin’’ played by a DEA agent to see where this leads. He responded to Gupta and asked for details. Text messages went back and forth, gobbled up and translated if needed by American intelligence systems that are many times faster than anything available on the Internet. Gupta explained that an unnamed Indian government official had promised to make Gupta’s pending Indian criminal issues disappear if Gupta could arrange a murder in New York City. The indictment names this official as CC-1. The deal was done for $100,000. Gupta arranged for an associate in New York to deliver $15,000 in cash to the “hitman”/DEA undercover agent as a show of good faith.
He was given personal data about the victim, Pannun, including his home address in New York City, phone numbers, and details about the victim’s day-to-day conduct, which Gupta then passed to the bogus hitman. Pannun was Nijjar’s lawyer and friend in the Sikh Khalistan movement. On June 16, the Vancouver murder takes place. On or about June 20, 2023, the Indian official claimed to be involved, sent Gupta a news article and messaged Gupta, “[i]t’s [a] priority now,” according to the indictment. After the Canadian assassination, Gupta tells his fake hitman that Nijjar “was also the target” and “we have so many targets”. Gupta added that, in light of Nijjar’s murder, there was “now no need to wait” to kill the New York Sikh. This is the intel that the US might have passed to Canadian counterparts.
If this analysis is merely close to what happened, it throws a wrench into efforts to improve US-India relations, especially as it relates to multiple issues in the Indo-Pacific region. The DEA’s enthusiasm for this case probably alarmed the US State Department, asking that it be put on hold until well after PM Modi’s visit to meet President Biden for White House talks. The DEA’s indictment identifies the Indian government agency employee as CC-1. It says he has variously described himself as, “a senior field officer with responsibilities in Security Management and Intelligence, and has referenced previously serving in India’s Central Reserve Police Force and receiving officer training in battle craft and weapons. CC-1 directed the assassination plot from India.”
The DEA released a joint statement by three senior officials which seemed to confirm the theory that there was Indian government involvement in the plot to kill Pannum. US Attorney Damian Williams said: “As alleged, the defendant conspired from India to assassinate, right here in New York City, a US citizen of Indian origin who has publicly advocated for the establishment of a sovereign state for Sikhs, an ethno-religious minority group in India. I am grateful that my Office and our law enforcement partners neutralized this deadly and outrageous threat. We will not tolerate efforts to assassinate US citizens on US soil, and stand ready to investigate, thwart, and prosecute anyone who seeks to harm and silence Americans here or abroad.”
Assistant Attorney General Matthew G Olsen added: “The dedicated law enforcement agents and prosecutors in this case foiled and exposed a dangerous plot to assassinate a US citizen on US soil. The Department of Justice will be relentless in using the full reach of our authorities to pursue accountability for lethal plotting emanating from overseas.”
DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said: “When a foreign government employee allegedly committed the brazen act of recruiting an international narcotics trafficker to murder a US citizen on US soil, DEA was there to stop the plot. I want to recognise the outstanding work of the DEA New York Field Division for their leadership in this investigation, the prosecution team at the US Attorney’s Office in Manhattan for pursuing today’s indictment, and our federal and global law enforcement partners for their assistance.”
FBI Assistant Director in Charge James Smith said: “Murder for hire is a crime out of a movie, but the plot in this case was all too real. The excellent teamwork of the law enforcement partners in this case exposed this brazen conspiracy and is why Nikhil Gupta finds himself in jail waiting to answer to these charges.”
At some point, Gupta, 52, will be held in the US, facing two criminal penalties, one for arranging a murder-for-hire, and a conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire. Each carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. The federal officials, so proud of their work on this, are likely to face lawyers for Gupta, citing use of a fake hitman as entrapment for a crime that never got committed.
For now, it is one more twist in the problematic political relationship of the two largest democracies on the planet. There have been some tense exchanges between senior intelligence officials on both sides and India has said it will investigate the DEA’s charges. (President Joe Biden has been invited to be the chief guest at India’s Republic Day celebrations on January 26, but so far, the White House has not responded.) The plot may read like a Bollywood movie, but the diplomatic implications are serious.
Michael Kugelman, the director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center think tank, says neither country would want this case to lead to tensions with the other. “There is such strong support here in Washington, on bipartisan levels, for this idea of the need to work with India to counter China in the Indo-Pacific,” he said. “There’s a strong view that India is America’s most important strategic partner in South Asia, to work with it to counter China. So I think that factor alone makes it very unlikely that this current situation could mushroom into some type of serious bilateral crisis for the US and India.”
Asked about how the case could affect US-India relations, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said India “remains a strategic partner and we’re going to continue to work to improve and strengthen that strategic partnership with India,” he said, adding: “at the same time, we take this very seriously… and we’re glad to see that the Indians are too.”
—The writer has worked in senior positions at The Washington Post, NBC, ABC and CNN and also consults for several Indian channels