New Delhi: “The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts to silence or harm American citizens,” US Attorney General Merrick B. Garland has said in a statement following the extradition of Indian national Nikhil Gupta — accused of attempting to kill Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on directions of an “Indian government employee” — to the US.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco also said that the “murder-for-hire-plot” allegedly orchestrated by an Indian government employee was a “brazen attempt to silence a political activist for exercising a quintessential American right: his freedom of speech”.
Gupta was arrested in the Czech Republic on 30 June last year and was extradited to the US pursuant to the bilateral extradition treaty between the US and the Czech Republic. He reached the US on 14 June and was presented on the charges before a federal court Monday.
In a statement released by the Office of Public Affairs of US Justice Department, Garland said that Gupta will now face justice in an American courtroom for his involvement in the alleged plot to kill Pannun, directed by an employee of the Indian government, to target and assassinate a US citizen for his support of the Sikh separatist movement in India.
FBI Director Christopher A. Wray said that the FBI will not tolerate attempts by foreign nationals, or anyone else for that matter, to repress constitutionally-protected freedoms in the US.
“We will continue to work with our partners at home and abroad to protect our citizens and these sacred rights,” he stated.
According to court documents, last year, an Indian government employee (CC-1) worked together with Gupta and others in India and elsewhere to direct an assassination plot against an attorney and political activist, who is a US citizen of Indian origin, on US soil.
Gupta is an Indian national who resides in India, is an associate of CC-1, and has described his involvement in international narcotics and weapons trafficking in his communications with CC-1 and others, the statement said.
According to the indictment filed by a New York district court last year, an Indian government employee who described himself as a ‘senior field officer’ with responsibilities in ‘security management’ and ‘intelligence’, and who also has referenced previously serving in India’s Central Reserve Police Force and receiving ‘officer training’ in ‘battle craft’ and ‘weapons’, directed the “assassination plot from India”.
The indictment claimed that Gupta is involved in international narcotics and weapons trafficking, and was recruited by the Indian government employee.
US prosecutors had claimed that Gupta subsequently started looking for people to carry out the task and then allegedly contacted an individual whom he believed to be a “criminal associate”, but was actually a confidential source working with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
This person — referred to as a “confidential source (CS)” — put Gupta in touch with a “hitman”, US prosecutors have said, adding that the latter was actually an undercover DEA officer.
The indictment says that after Gupta made a team and conveyed the same to the Indian official, a deal to pay $100,000 to the hitman was struck.
According to the statement from DoJ, DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said that Gupta is alleged to have orchestrated a dangerous plot to murder a US citizen on US soil and DEA’s number one priority is always the health and safety of the American people.
The statement further said that CC-1 recruited Gupta to orchestrate the assassination of the victim in the US.
It said that the victim is a “vocal critic of the Indian government” and “leads a US-based organization that advocates for the secession of Punjab”, a state in northern India that is home to a large population of Sikhs, an ethno-religious minority group in India.
“The victim has publicly called for some or all of Punjab to secede from India and establish a Sikh sovereign state called Khalistan, and the Indian government has banned the victim and his separatist organisation from India,” the statement reads.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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