Indian official hired hitman to target Sikh, DOJ alleges

The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday charged Vikash Yadav with attempting to pay a hitman to kill a Sikh activist in New York City. The assassination plot, alleged to have begun in May 2023, ultimately failed, officials have said. Prosecutors have already filed charges against Yadav’s co-conspirator in the assassination plot, Indian drug and arms dealer Nikhil Gupta, the DOJ said. The United States has already extradited Gupta to the United States, but Yadav remains at large. The department’s indictment presents allegations and is not proof of wrongdoing on the part of Yadav. He’s presumed innocent until proven guilty, the DOJ said.

What exactly does the DOJ say happened? Prosecutors allege that Yadav, who worked in the Government of India’s Cabinet Secretariat at the time, conspired with Gupta and others to plot a killing. Their target was an Indian-born U.S. citizen working as an attorney in New York City and advocating for an independent Sikh state in India, the DOJ said. Yadav allegedly tasked Gupta with orchestrating the murder of the attorney.

Gupta connected with someone he believed was a criminal, but the person was a confidential informant for law enforcement, the DOJ said. Gupta allegedly presented a plan to the informant that involved hiring a hitman to murder the attorney. The informant introduced Gupta to a purported hitman who was really a federal agent, according to the indictment. Gupta then allegedly worked as a middleman for Yadav and the purported hitman to plan the attack.

Yadav eventually agreed to pay the pretend hitman $100,000 to kill the attorney, according to the indictment. He instructed the undercover agent not to actually commit the murder in the days surrounding a June 2023 visit to the United States by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, according to the document. But just days before Modi appeared in the United States, masked gunmen separately murdered a Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada. Yadav confirmed to the fake hitman that Nijjar was a target of the Indian government and that New Dehli was targeting many individuals as well, according to the DOJ’s indictment.

Dig deeper: Read my report in The Sift about Canadian authorities’ far-reaching into Indian government connections to criminal activity in Canada.