US charges former Indian spy allegedly linked to foiled murder plot

The United States has charged a former Indian intelligence officer who allegedly directed a foiled plot to murder a Sikh separatist in New York City last year.

An indictment of Vikash Yadav was ordered to be unsealed on Thursday, court records showed. Yadav was a former officer in India’s Research and Analysis Wing spy service, the records said. He remains at large.

The murder-for-hire plot was first disclosed by federal prosecutors last year when they announced charges against a man, Nikhil Gupta, who was recruited by a then unidentified Indian government employee to orchestrate the assassination of Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a US citizen.

“The FBI will not tolerate acts of violence or other efforts to retaliate against those residing in the U.S. for exercising their constitutionally protected rights,” FBI director Christopher Wray said in a statement.

An Indian government committee investigating Indian involvement in the foiled murder plot met with US officials in Washington on Tuesday, a meeting that Washington described as productive.

The United States had been pushing India to look into the US justice department’s claim that an Indian intelligence official directed plans to assassinate Pannun.

On Wednesday, the state department said that US and Indian officials investigating the foiled murder plot had held a “productive” meeting in Washington.

The unsealing of the indictment came days after Canada expelled six Indian diplomats, after linking them to the 2023 murder of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil. India also ordered the expulsion of Canadian diplomats and denies Canada’s allegations.

On Wednesday, Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister, accused India of violating Canadian sovereignty, saying Indian officials had been linked to a campaign of violence against Sikh activists which involved “drive-by shootings, home invasions, violent extortion and even murder in and across Canada”.

The accusations have tested Washington and Ottawa’s relations with India, often viewed by the west as a counterbalance to China.

India has labeled Sikh separatists as “terrorists” and threats to its security. Sikh separatists demand an independent homeland known as Khalistan to be carved out of India. An insurgency in India during the 1980s and 1990s killed tens of thousands.