This is part 3 of the series. Read part 1 here and part 2 here.
New Delhi: Eleven days left to complete the job, a voice on a WhatsApp call warns. The voice is possessed by the kind of demons that power a screenwriter’s imagination. “When you get the chance and opportunity, hit the target…,” the voice says, “…no restrictions, no limitations. If any other person [is] with him, you can also give him, also, the taste of the [gun].”
The man supposedly being hired by the voice confesses that he is concerned about bystanders. The reply is an unequivocal instruction to kill everyone: “Let them go to heaven.”
Delhi-based businessman Nikhil Gupta—the voice on the WhatsApp call according to the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)—didn’t know he was walking into a carefully planned ambush.
Gupta was arrested in the Czech Republic late last year. He is currently on trial in a US court on murder-for-hire charges connected to an alleged assassination attempt on Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York. According to the US DEA, Indian citizen Nikhil Gupta communicated with former R&AW officer Vikash Yadav.
Since Gupta’s arrest, one question has remained unresolved: if he was acting on behalf of India’s external intelligence service, R&AW, why did he travel to a jurisdiction where he risked arrest?
His trial, following a breakdown of his relationship with court-appointed lawyers, has been delayed to 30 March 2026 to give the new defence team preparation time. According to court filings, Gupta declined a plea agreement from prosecutors, though its terms have not been disclosed. It is likewise uncertain whether prosecutors would present the offer again to his newly appointed defence counsel. This means complete answers could be many months away. However, the mass of documents already submitted by prosecutors to Victor Marrero, the US judge conducting the trial, contains some valuable insights.
In this report, ThePrint delves into those documents to find probable answers to the long-standing question.
Also Read: NIA books SFJ’s Pannun over reward for stopping PM from hoisting flag, ‘Delhi Banayga Khalistan’ map
The Swiss connection
The Czech Police’s request to the municipal public prosecutor for remanding Nikhil Gupta into custody recorded that he travelled to Prague on a Swiss visa. The visa, which allowed Gupta to enter Europe (Schengen zone) through Zurich, was issued on 10 June 2023 and was valid for six months.
There is no record in the documents about when Nikhil Gupta applied for the visa. According to VFS Global, which processes visa applications for the Swiss Embassy in New Delhi, the maximum waiting time for a Schengen visa is 15 days.
What is likely then is that Gupta began planning his trip to the Czech Republic’s capital city, Prague, at the end of May or early June.
The request that the United States Justice Department sent to Interpol and the Czech Republic, seeking Nikhil Gupta’s detention, alleged that Gupta first offered his ‘hitman’ contact $100,000 for Pannun’s killing on 30 May 2023.
“Gupta initially requested that the murder [of Pannun] occur by, on, or about 11 June 2023, or otherwise, on or about 26 June 2023, after the Indian Prime Minister’s official state visit to the United States, to avoid political upheaval and controversy,” the Justice Department’s letter to Interpol and the Czech authorities alleged.
In the US, Nikhil Gupta’s contact, whom he believed to be a Colombian narcotics trafficker, negotiated a $15,000 advance. The contact—in reality, an informant for the New York Police Department—was allegedly paid in cash on 9 June via a hawala dealer.
From this timeline, it seems probable that Gupta planned to travel to Prague at the outset of the alleged murder-for-hire plot.
Probably, he planned to complete the payment to the man he believed to be a narcotics trafficker and further discuss operations he was offering.
On 13 June, a New York court, however, issued a judicial warrant for Nikhil Gupta’s arrest. It opened the way for him to be held in Prague.
After the killing of Toronto-based Khalistan operative Hardeep Singh Nijjar on 18 June, Gupta mounted pressure for the plot to be sped up, the US Justice Department claimed in its letter.
The day after Nijjar was shot dead, the two men supposedly discussed meeting in either Los Angeles or Prague. The duo further discussed that they would chat about other contract murders, as well as separate negotiations on firearm and drug sales.
The Justice Department suggested to Interpol in the letter that investigators might not have been entirely certain about who their targets were up to 19 June. The letter provided two passport numbers—one Pakistani and the other Indian.
The Indian passport number, however, was inaccurate, Nikhil Gupta’s defence lawyer would note in subsequent legal proceedings in Prague.
The letter contained two photos of Gupta, taken by border police on his visits to the US in 2016 and 2017. It is unclear whether he used a Pakistani passport, be it genuine or not, on either of those trips.
Also Read: Nijjar successor, Pannun aide—who is Inderjeet Gosal & why his arrest in Canada matters
Gaps in the plot
Little doubt exists that Nikhil Gupta had not prepared for the prospect of arrest on his arrival in Prague.
The businessman, according to the Czech Police, voluntarily handed over passwords for three mobile phones he had been carrying.
During his questioning later, Gupta would claim to be unable to identify Vikash Yadav, telling the US DEA that the alleged R&AW officer wore a mask, hat, glasses, and long-sleeve T-shirts. However, his phones would provide them with his employment records showing his connection with Yadav, bank statements, and personal identification to the investigators.
In Prague, Nikhil Gupta’s references to the alleged handler using a code name—Amanat—are the first that links him with ‘Amanat’, according to the investigation records. And thus, had Gupta not travelled to Prague, the US investigators would be unlikely to have established his alleged links to the R&AW or his handler identity.
Lacking an official Hindi-language translator, the Czech authorities had hired Zahid Rashid—a Pakistani-origin translator and one-time engineer—to assist its court during Gupta’s arrest. The tape-recorded court proceedings have suggested that Gupta was flustered. At one stage, he requested the judge to notify “my son in India and my son in Pakistan and the Indian Embassy in Prague”.
Gupta also filed further appeals in the Czech ‘constitutional’ courts, introducing the claim that his actions were of a political nature that the Indian State had sanctioned. In his counsel’s words, he was “a soldier sui-generis”. This argument was rejected because Gupta’s actions were not intended to change the American political order.
Later in Prague, Gupta argued before the court that the US authorities could have sought his extradition from India. However, Czech authorities responded, saying that the informal tactical decisions that they made were permissible.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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