Man accused in alleged India-backed plot to kill Sikh separatist in New York pleads guilty in U.S. court | CBC News

An Indian man pleaded guilty on Friday to ‌U.S. criminal charges that he orchestrated a failed Indian government-backed plot to kill a Sikh separatist in New York ‌City, in connection with what U.S. and Canadian authorities have called a broader effort to target Indian dissidents.

Nikhil Gupta, 54, pleaded guilty to murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

U.S. prosecutors accused Gupta of plotting with an Indian government official to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen and lawyer at Sikhs for Justice in New ​York, who has advocated for a sovereign Sikh state in northern India.

India’s government has dissociated itself from any plot against Pannun, saying it was against government policy.

The discovery of alleged assassination plots against Sikh separatists in the U.S. and Canada has tested relations with India, which has also denied involvement in such plots.

In June 2023, Hardeep Singh Nijjar was gunned down in Surrey, B.C., a crime that then-prime minister Justin Trudeau would later allege involved the Indian government.

Nijjar’s killing was referred to in the Gupta case, with Nijjar identified as an associate of the victim in the planned killing in the U.S. that Gupta had been trying to arrange.

Gupta to face sentencing in May

Gupta entered his plea before U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn in Manhattan federal court.

“I agreed with another person to have another individual ⁠to murder a person in United States” and paid someone in New York $15,000 to commit the crime, Gupta said, according to a transcript of his plea hearing.

WATCH | U.S. indictment reveals alleged murder-for-hire plot linked to India:

U.S. indictment reveals alleged murder-for-hire plot linked to India

Months after the high-profile killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar triggered a diplomatic rift between Canada and India, a newly unsealed U.S. indictment alleges American authorities managed to stop a plot to assassinate multiple Sikh nationalists in North America — including three in Canada.

Gupta has been jailed in Brooklyn, N.Y., since his June 2024 extradition to the U.S. from the Czech Republic, where he had been arrested a year earlier. His sentencing is scheduled for May 29, court records show.

His lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Indian Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not immediately respond to separate requests for comment.

Prosecutors said an Indian government ​official, Vikash Yadav, recruited Gupta in May 2023 to orchestrate Pannun’s assassination, with Gupta telling Yadav about his involvement in international narcotics and weapons trafficking.

Purported hitman was undercover officer

According to court ⁠papers, Yadav arranged through dealings that Gupta brokered to pay $100,000 US to a purported hitman, who was actually an undercover officer ⁠for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, to assassinate Pannun. Gupta and Yadav arranged to have $15,000 in cash delivered to the undercover ⁠officer ⁠as an advance payment for the murder, court ​papers show.

Prosecutors said Yadav was employed by India’s Cabinet Secretariat, which houses the country’s foreign intelligence service, the Research and Analysis ​Wing.

He faces the same criminal charges ⁠as Gupta but is not in U.S. custody. It is unclear whether Yadav has hired a defence lawyer.

“Nikhil Gupta plotted to assassinate a U.S. citizen in New York City,” the U.S. Attorney for Manhattan, Jay Clayton, said in a statement. “He thought that from outside this country he could kill someone in it without consequence, simply for exercising their American right to free speech. But ⁠he was wrong.”