Nikhil Gupta (C) after being extradited from Prague to New York. (Photo: US Drug Enforcement Administration)
New Delhi: Nikhil Gupta, an Indian national who self-described as an international narcotics and weapons trafficker, has pleaded guilty in a New York federal court to all three charges against him: murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The charges relate to his role in a foiled plot, directed by a serving Indian government intelligence operative, to assassinate Gurpatwant Singh Pannun – the Canadian-American lawyer and Sikh separatist leader who heads the Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) organization – in New York City in 2023.
Gupta, 54, entered the guilty plea before US magistrate judge Sarah Netburn in Manhattan. He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 29 by US district judge Victor Marrero. The murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire charges each carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison; the money-laundering conspiracy charge carries up to 20 years.
As India Sentinels first reported in November 2023, US federal prosecutors alleged in court filings that Gupta had been recruited by an Indian government employee – identified in the original indictment as “CC-1” and later named by the justice department as Vikash Yadav – to arrange Pannun’s killing on American soil. Yadav was employed by the Cabinet Secretariat, the office that houses India’s foreign intelligence service, the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW).
How the plot was foiled
Court documents and statements made in court lay out a sequence that began around May 2023, when Yadav allegedly recruited Gupta to find a hitman. Gupta reached out to someone he believed was a criminal contact but who was, in fact, a confidential source working with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). That source then introduced Gupta to a purported contract killer who was actually an undercover DEA officer.
Yadav subsequently agreed, through Gupta, to pay the undercover officer $100,000 to carry out the murder. On June 9, 2023, Gupta and Yadav arranged for an associate to hand $15,000 in cash to the undercover officer as an advance payment. In the weeks that followed, Yadav supplied Gupta with Pannun’s home address in New York City, telephone numbers, and details of his daily movements, all of which Gupta passed on to the undercover officer along with surveillance photographs of the target.
Gupta pressed for the killing to be carried out as soon as possible. However, he specifically told the undercover officer not to proceed around the time of the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to the United States, which was due to begin on approximately June 20, 2023.
Shadow of Nijjar killing
The plot acquired an additional dimension when, on June 18, 2023 – roughly two days before Modi’s arrival in Washington – masked gunmen shot dead Hardeep Singh Nijjar outside a Sikh cultural centre in Surrey, British Columbia. Nijjar was a prominent Sikh separatist and a close associate of Pannun.
The day after Nijjar’s killing, Gupta told the DEA undercover officer that Nijjar “was also the target” and that “we have so many targets”, according to prosecutors. He added that, with Nijjar dead, there was now “no need to wait” on eliminating Pannun.
As India Sentinels reported in September 2023, the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, publicly accused the Indian government of involvement in Nijjar’s murder in a statement to the Canadian parliament – an allegation New Delhi dismissed as “absurd”. The accusation set off a major diplomatic crisis between India and Canada, resulting in the mutual expulsion of senior diplomats from both countries.
Gupta arrested in Prague, extradited to the US
Gupta was arrested in the Czech Republic on June 30, 2023. He was held in Czech custody while Washington and Prague worked through extradition proceedings. As India Sentinels had reported, the US justice department’s Office of International Affairs worked with Czech authorities to secure his extradition, which was completed in June 2024.
The co-defendant: Vikash Yadav
The second superseding indictment names Vikash Yadav (initially identified as CC-1) as a co-defendant – the Indian government operative who allegedly initiated and directed the assassination scheme. Yadav has not been extradited to the United States and his whereabouts in relation to ongoing Indian proceedings remain a subject of diplomatic sensitivity. As India Sentinels reported in October 2024, India informed US authorities that Yadav – whom India had by then distanced itself from, stating he was no longer a government employee – had been detained in India.
The US had also identified Yadav as a former officer of India’s Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) before his posting to the Cabinet Secretariat.
India’s response: from denial to inquiry
When the original indictment became public in November 2023, India’s foreign ministry spokesman, Arindam Bagchi, acknowledged it was “a matter of concern” and described such a course of action as “contrary to government policy”. India announced that a high-level inquiry committee had been constituted to examine the matter – a step the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, at the time called “good and appropriate”.
As India Sentinels reported in December 2023, Blinken told reporters that Washington took the allegations “very seriously”, adding that senior US officials had raised the matter directly with the Indian government in the preceding weeks. Reports at the time also indicated that the CIA director, William Burns, and the US national intelligence director, Avril Haines, had separately visited New Delhi to address the issue at the highest levels.
By October 2024, as India Sentinels reported, a high-level Indian investigative team comprising the deputy national security adviser and another senior official was already in the United States as part of the ongoing probe.
Indian-American lawmakers flag impact on bilateral ties
The case generated concern across party lines in the US Congress. As India Sentinels reported in December 2023, five Indian-American members of Congress – Ami Bera, Pramila Jayapal, Ro Khanna, Raja Krishnamoorthi, and Shri Thanedar – issued a joint statement after receiving a classified administration briefing on the indictment. They described the allegations as “deeply concerning” and called on India to fully investigate the matter, hold accountable all those responsible – including government officials – and provide assurances the conduct would not be repeated.
The lawmakers also underscored the risk to the broader relationship, warning that the actions described in the indictment could, if not properly addressed, cause “significant damage” to the US-India partnership.
‘Five Eyes’ expel RAW station heads
The case unfolded against a backdrop of considerable intelligence disruption. Reports cited by India Sentinels in late 2023 indicated that the United States had blocked the replacement of RAW’s Washington station chief and had expelled the agency’s San Francisco station head.
The United Kingdom similarly expelled the deputy of RAW’s London station head. Canada, for its part, had already expelled a senior Indian diplomat from Ottawa – widely believed to be RAW’s station chief there – in the immediate wake of Trudeau’s accusations over the Nijjar killing.
All three countries are members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance alongside Australia and New Zealand, and they closely coordinate intelligence and security responses.
What Gupta’s guilty plea means
By pleading guilty to all three counts in the second superseding indictment, Gupta has removed any prospect of a contested trial that might have generated more public detail about the operation’s chain of command. The plea is a significant legal development in a case that has already complicated India’s diplomatic standing not only with the United States but also with Canada and other western partners.
Announcing the guilty plea, the US attorney for the southern district of New York, Jay Clayton, said Gupta had believed he could order the killing of a US citizen on American soil “simply for exercising their American right to free speech” without consequence. “He was wrong, and he will face justice,” Clayton said, adding a broader warning to what he described as “nefarious foreign actors” to stay clear of the United States and its people.
The FBI’s counterintelligence and espionage division assistant director, Roman Rozhavsky, described Gupta as a key participant in a transnational repression scheme. “No matter where you are located,” Rozhavsky said, “If you try to harm our citizens we will not stop until you are brought to justice.”
DEA administrator Terrance Cole called the case “a stark reminder of the ruthless lengths criminals will go to in order to further their illegal enterprises”, noting the link between Gupta’s background as a narcotics and weapons trafficker and his role in the murder-for-hire scheme.
FBI assistant director in charge James C. Barnacle Jr said the plot had been directed and coordinated by an Indian government employee to silence a vocal critic of the Indian government on American soil – an act he described as a foreign adversary’s unlawful attempt to suppress constitutionally protected rights.
Who is Gurpatwant Singh Pannun?
Pannun, born in Amritsar district in Punjab, holds dual citizenship of the United States and Canada. He is the general counsel and one of the founders of Sikhs for Justice, an organization that advocates for a Sikh homeland called Khalistan through the secession of Punjab from India. India declared him an individual terrorist under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act several years ago and has banned both him and his organization from the country.
In September 2023, India’s National Investigation Agency confiscated property linked to Pannun at his ancestral village of Khankot in Amritsar and at a Chandigarh address in connection with terror-related proceedings.
