US accuses Indian agent of directing plot to assassinate American citizen

US prosecutors have accused an agent of the Indian government of directing the attempted assassination of an American citizen on US soil, according to a superseding indictment released by the Department of Justice, which revealed new details about India’s alleged targeting of Sikh activists around the world.

The indictment also provided new evidence that the Indian agent – who is not named – ordered the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Sikh activist who was shot dead outside a Sikh temple in British Columbia in June.

The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, announced in September that there were “credible allegations” that agents of the Indian government had carried out the assassination of Nijjar. The allegations was denied by India, which called the claim “absurd” and politically motivated.

The US indictment now appears to confirm, however, evidence of a global plot allegedly orchestrated in India to silence and kill vocal critics of the Indian government who support the creation of an independent Sikh state.

Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the target of the alleged assassination plot, told the Guardian that the indictment revealed a “blatant case of India’s transnational terrorism” – adding that the attempt on his life had only galvanized his efforts to pursue a symbolic referendum on an independent Sikh homeland, known as Khalistan.

“If death is the cost for running the Khalistan referendum, I am willing to pay that price,” he said in a statement. “First by assassinating Nijjar in Canada and then attempting to assassinate me on US soil, India under [prime minister Narendra Modi] has extended to the foreign soils its policy of violently crushing the Sikhs movement for right to self-determination.”

The Department of Justice has not named the Indian government official – who it refers to as CC-1 in the indictment and says previously served in India’s Central Reserve Police Force.

It has charged another individual, Nikhil Gupta, 52, of working in close connection with the Indian agent.

Gupta, an Indian national, is described as a “close associate” of CC-1, and has allegedly described his involvement in international drug and weapons trafficking. He was arrested and detained on 30 June in the Czech Republic and is being extradited to the US under a bilateral extradition treaty.

According to the indictment, the Indian government agent, working with Gupta and others in India and elsewhere, directed a plot to kill a US attorney and political activist who resides in New York City. In or around May 2023, CC-1 is alleged to have recruited Gupta to orchestrate the “assassination” of the victim in the US, who was described by prosecutors as a “vocal critic of the Indian government and leads a US-based organization advocating for the secession of Punjab, the northern Indian state that contains a large population of Sikhs”.

The Financial Times first reported last week that US authorities had thwarted a conspiracy to assassinate a Sikh separatist on American soil and had issued a warning to India’s government over concerns it was involved in the plot.

According to the indictment, Gupta, allegedly working at the direction of the Indian agent, contacted an individual he believed was a criminal associate for help to contract a hitman to murder the target.

But the associate was in fact a confidential source working for US law enforcement, and a purported hitman they introduced Gupta to was an undercover US law enforcement officer.

The supposed hitman was ultimately offered – in a deal allegedly brokered by Gupta – $100,000 to murder the New York City target. As an advanced payment, Gupta arranged for another associate of the Indian agent (CC-1) to deliver $15,000 to the purported hitman.

As the plot unfolded, the Indian agent allegedly sought regular updates from Gupta on how the plan was progressing. Gupta, in turn, provided the Indian agent with surveillance photos and other items. Gupta urged the purported hitman to carry out the murder as soon as possible, but warned him against committing the murder around the time of expected meetings between “high-level US and Indian government officials”.

That detail is a likely reference to a state visit by the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, last June, a high-profile meeting in which Joe Biden called the US and India partnership “stronger, closer and more dynamic than any time in history”.

Nijjar, the Canada-based activist, was assassinated by masked gunmen on 18 June. Hours later, the indictment claims, CC-1 sent Gupta a video clip showing Nijjar’s bloody body slumped in his vehicle, and then the street address of the alleged US victim’s home in New York City.

A day later, Gupta told the undercover officer – who was posing as a hitman – that Nijjar “was also a target” and “we have so many targets”. He added, in light of Nijjar’s killing that there was now “no need to wait” on killing the New York City target.

On 20 June, the Indian agent (CC-1) sent Gupta a news article about the target and said “it’s a priority now”.

Gupta has been charged with murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire.

The Guardian has previously reported that, after the murder in Canada, the FBI alerted several US citizens who are also Sikh activists that they were at risk of being targeted.

The Indian government has long complained about the presence of Sikh separatist groups outside India, which campaign for the establishment for an independent Sikh state, known as Khalistan to be carved out of India.

The Indian government has openly pursued Khalistani militants and sympathisers within its own borders, and Sikh groups have accused the government of taking its crackdown on dissent beyond Indian territory.

Pritpal Singh, the founder of the American Sikh Caucus Committee, who is one of the Americans who was warned by the FBI at the time, said in a statement that he was grateful for the work of the Department of Justice, FBI, New York police department, and Czech law enforcement agencies.

“India displayed blatant disregard for the rule of law when its government orchestrated to kill an American activist on US soil, coinciding with Modi’s White House visit. These revelations are a deeply disturbing development that has shocked our community. The Indian rogue regime must be held accountable, and the perpetrators must be brought to justice,” Singh said.

The news on Wednesday could also renew attention on the death in Britain last June of another Sikh activist, Avtar Singh Khanda, a 35-year-old who died in a Birmingham hospital after a short illness this summer.

His family and a lawyer have sought a formal inquest into his death from the chief coroner for England and Wales, but the request has recently been denied.

The Indian government did not immediately respond to the allegations in the indictment, but after the FT first reported on the alleged plot, a spokesperson for India’s ministry of external affairs said: “During the course of recent discussions on India-US security cooperation, the US side shared some inputs pertaining to nexus between organised criminals, gun runners, terrorists and others. The inputs are a cause of concern for both countries and they decided to take necessary follow-up action.

“On its part, India takes such inputs seriously since it impinges on our own national security interests as well. Issues in the context of US inputs are already being examined by relevant departments.”