US charges former RAW officer Vikash Yadav over plot to murder Khalistani separatist Pannun

New York, Oct 18: US prosecutors have charged a former Senior Field Officer of RAW, Vikash Yadav, in an alleged murder-for-hire plot against Khalistani separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun residing in New York City. In a strongly worded statement, Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Thursday, “Today’s charges demonstrate that the Justice Department will not tolerate attempts to target and endanger Americans and to undermine the rights to which every US citizen is entitled”.

Describing Yadav as “an Indian government employee“, he said, “The Justice Department will be relentless in holding accountable any person regardless of their position or proximity to power who seeks to harm and silence American citizens”.

Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen who heads the Justice Department’s National Security Division, was more blunt: “To the governments around the world who may be considering such criminal activity and to the communities they would target, let there be no doubt that the Department of Justice is committed to disrupting and exposing these plots and to holding the wrongful actors accountable no matter who they are or where they reside”.

The charges filed against Yadav and his alleged co-conspirator Nikhil Gupta, were unsealed in the Federal Southern District of New York Court on Thursday. The charges were framed by a grand jury, a panel of citizens that first decides if there is a prima facie case after the prosecution makes a preliminary presentation of the case.

Yadav faces three charges along with Gupta: conspiracy to hire a hitman, the actual “murder for hire” plot, and money laundering. The charging document filed by the prosecutors makes a reference to the killing of a Canada based Sikh separatist, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in British Columbia, that has led to a serious deterioration of relations between India and Canada. It says that Yadav told Gupta that “Nijjar was also the target” and “we have many targets”, and sent him a video of Nijjar’s body slumped in his car.

It appears that US law enforcement intercepted or had access to the electronic communications between Yadav and Gupta, even those on encrypted apps because extensive quotes from those are included in the court document. Gupta, who was arrested in the Czech Republic at the request of the US, was extradited to the US in June and produced in court. Many of the details in the court document filed by the prosecutors repeat the same narratives made in earlier documents filed against Gupta, but this time, Yadav is identified by name.

The indictment presents Yadav as the alleged mastermind who recruited Gupta to carry out the plot in exchange for helping him get criminal cases against him dismissed, and directed him. It says that “Yadav recruited Gupta to orchestrate the assassination of the Victim in the United States” and that under Yadav’s “directions,” Gupta contacted a government “confidential source” who he thought was “a criminal associate”.

This person, in turn, put him in touch with the “purported hitman” who was, in fact, an undercover US law enforcement officer, unravelling the plot, according to the court document, which also included a photograph of Yadav dressed in military fatigues. The charges were filed a day after an Indian Enquiry Committee set up to investigate the allegations visited Washington to discuss the case with US officials.

Judge Victor Marrero, who is presiding over the case against Yadav, has set a status conference on Friday when the prosecutors and the defence lawyer are to discuss handling the evidence and proceeding with the case. The 18 page document filed by the prosecutors does not name any other Indian official. Neither does it name Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the leader of the separatist group, Sikhs for Justice, who was reportedly the target of the alleged plot.

It only says that the “Victim” was “an attorney and political activist who is a US citizen of Indian origin living in New York City” and leads “a US-based organisation that advocates for the secession of Punjab” to establish Khalistan. The Indian government has banned the "Victim" and his separatist organisation, it noted.

The document says that Yadav, who used the aliases Amant and Vikas, was “employed by the Cabinet Secretariat of the Government of India which houses India’s foreign intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW)”. Yadav has described himself as a “Senior Field Officer” with responsibilities in “Security Management” and “Intelligence” and has served in the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), “India’s largest paramilitary force”, according to the court paper.

He said that he was an “assistant commandant” in CRPF with 135 men under his command and that he had received “paratrooper”, “battle craft”, and counterintelligence training, the document said. He also gave his address as “CGO Complex” in New Delhi, where according to the document RAW is headquartered.

It said that in June 2023, they agreed with the “hitman” on a payment of $100,000 to allegedly kill the “victim” and Yadav and Gupta arranged through an “associate of Yadav” to give $15,000 as advance. Yadav gave Gupta the details about the “Victim”, including his address in New York and his phone numbers, which were passed on to the undercover agent, the indictment said.

The document said that the alleged plot began around May 6 last year with Yadav sending Gupta a message on an encrypted app, “This is Vikas save my name as Aman”. A few minutes later, he received a call from Yadav who told him that he had a “target in New York” and another in “California”, and Gupta replied, “We will hit all our targets”, it said.

A week later, Yadav assured him that he had “spoke(n) to his boss” about Yadav’s case and it was closed, and they proceeded with the alleged plot, according to the court document. The document says that during a video call, Yadav turned the camera towards three men in business attire at a conference room and said, “We are all counting on you”.

Yadav discussed at length how the money was to be transferred and also told him to hold off on the plot during the time of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US last June. Gupta is being held without bail in a notorious federal jail, the Metropolitan Detention Center, where the rapper Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is also held.