NEW YORK, Feb 14 (APP): An Indian national accused of plotting to kill a Sikh leader in New York City has pleaded guilty to three criminal charges in a federal court, a spokesperson of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan said in a statement, marking a dramatic turn in the high-profile case.
Nikhil Gupta, 54, worked at the direction of an Indian Government employee to arrange the murder of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, an American citizen who advocates for Khalistan.
Gupta pleaded guilty to murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carry a maximum combined sentence of 40 years in prison, the spokesperson said.
“Our message to nefarious foreign actors should be clear: steer clear of the United States and our people,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a statement after Gupta pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charges against him.
Pannun, a legal advisor to Sikhs for Justice, said in a statement that the guilty plea was “judicial confirmation” that the Indian government of Narendra Modi orchestrated an assassination plot on American soil.
“The Indian government targeted an American citizen for exercising first amendment rights – organizing the Khalistan referendum, a peaceful political campaign advocating self-determination for Punjab … The Modi government’s transnational assassination plots to silence dissenting political opinion is an act of terrorism and attack on America’s sovereignty,” he said.
The news marks a stunning development in a case that began in June 2023, when another high-profile Sikh activist named Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead outside a Sikh temple in British Columbia, Canada. Justin Trudeau, who served as Canada’s prime minister at the time, said months after the murder that there were “credible allegations” that agents of the Indian government had carried out the killing.
India called the accusation “absurd” and politically motivated. But Trudeau’s charges gained credibility in November that year, when the US attorney’s office in New York unsealed an indictment against Gupta, and announced he was being extradited back to the US from the Czech Republic.
Gupta was described at the time as an Indian national who resided in India and was an associate of an Indian government official – later identified as Vikash Yadav – who had recruited Gupta to orchestrate the assassination of Pannun on US soil.
Yadav was also indicted but remains at large and is a subject of a federal arrest warrant.
When Gupta contacted an individual to carry out the murder, he believed he was contacting a criminal associate. In fact, the individual was a described as a confidential source working with the US Drug Enforcement Administration, US prosecutors said.
In his statement, Pannum said: “The Modi government’s claim that [the] murder-for-hire conspiracy was the act of a ‘rogue agent’ collapses under the weight of the evidence presented in federal court.”
The news follows a significant development in US-India relations earlier this month, after President Donald Trump said that India had agreed to stop buying Russian oil and that he agreed to cut US tariffs on India exports.