Nikhil Gupta, an Indian national who was arrested for plotting to kill Khalistani separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York in 2023, has pleaded guilty in a US court.
Nikhil Gupta, 54-year-old, was arrested in the Czech Republic in June 2023 and subsequently extradited from the Czech Republic to the United States in 2024, stated a report by The Indian Express. Upon being extradited, Gupta denied the charges against him, but on Friday (February 13), he pleaded guilty to all three counts in the US Department of Justice's (DoJ) 2024 indictment, including murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, and conspiracy to launder money. Gupta is scheduled to be sentenced on May 29.
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Here is a look at the case, the DoJ's charges, how it connected to the killing of another Khalistani operative, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, and what the Indian government's position has been.
Case details
Gupta had hired the hitman, who was an undercover law enforcement officer in the US, to murder Pannun in New York, and had made an advance payment of $15,000 in May-June 2023. The US had indicted Gupta twice, once in 2023 and once in 2024.
While the latest statement from the US Department of Justice does not mention the name of the person, it refers to him as a 'US citizen' and 'victim'. The information that has been made public, however, leaves little doubt about the person's identity, reported The Indian Express.
Pannun, who holds both US and Canadian citizenship, is the leader of the pro-Khalistan outfit ‘Sikhs for Justice.’ The outfit has been banned in India. New Delhi has distanced itself from the plot against Pannun on several occasions, terming it against government policy. The Ministry of External Affairs has described the charges "unwarranted and unsubstantiated". India had set up a high-level inquiry committee in November 2023 to address the security issues that were raised by the US.
Arrest and extradition
Gupta was arrested in Prague by the Czech authorities, who arrested him based on a US extradition agreement, after investigating him for allegedly plotting with other people to kill Pannun.
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Gupta filed a legal petition to contest that extradition process, and it was one court ruling against Gupta, May 2024, prior to which the extradition was ordered in June 2024. Gupta will continue to claim his innocence while being in custody at a Brooklyn, New York, jail and after being extradited back to the US.
How the Department of Justice established link to the Nijjar assassination
The DoJ has established several connections between the Pannun plot and the killing of Khalistani separatist Nijjar in Canada on July 18, 2023.
FBI Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky said in the DoJ statement on Friday, as reported by The Indian Express, "The US citizen became a target of transnational repression solely for exercising their freedom of speech."
"Transnational repression" is the same term used by Canadian authorities in their allegations against the Indian government regarding Nijjar's assassination outside a gurdwara in Surrey, British Columbia. India has rejected these allegations, which have strained bilateral ties for years. In connection with the Nijjar case, the US DoJ referred to the "victim" as an "associate" of Nijjar, The Indian Express reported.
The second indictment by the DoJ in 2024, mentioned in Friday’s statement, notes, "Nijjar was an associate of the victim, and, like the victim, was a leader of the Sikh separatist movement and an outspoken critic of the Indian government."
According to the statement reported by The Indian Express, the day after Nijjar's murder, Gupta told the undercover officer that Nijjar "was also the target" and "we have so many targets".
Allegation of working together with an Indian government official
In its statement on Friday, the US Department of Justice said Gupta worked with an Indian government employee to plan the assassination of a US citizen, specifically Pannun.
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"In or about 2023, Gupta worked together with others in India and elsewhere, including, as alleged in the Second Superseding Indictment, co-defendant Vikash Yadav, who was at relevant times an Indian government employee, to plot the assassination of an attorney and political activist," the statement said as reported by The Indian Express.
Yadav was previously identified as CC1 in the Department of Justice's November 2023 indictment.
"Yadav worked for the Government of India's Cabinet Secretariat, which houses India's foreign intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing," the Department of Justice statement claimed.
On December 18, 2023, the Delhi Police Special Cell arrested Yadav, just three weeks after US authorities named him as CC1 in the Pannun case. Police charged him with extortion, kidnapping and connections to the gangster Lawrence Bishnoi.
In October 2024, the Ministry of External Affairs stated that the person named in the Department of Justice's second indictment in 2024 was no longer working for the Indian government. The statement said Yadav has not yet been arrested in connection with those charges.
The sentencing
Gupta pled guilty to murder-for-hire, which has a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, and conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, also with a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. He also pled guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
This means he could face up to 40 years in prison. The exact length of the sentence will be decided on May 29.
