U.S. charges against Indian government employee for assassination plot shows ties to Nijjar slaying

OTTAWA — A newly unsealed indictment into charges filed by the U.S. Justice Department against a government of India employee for allegedly planning to assassinate a Sikh activist in New York City reveals multiple ties between the foiled plot and the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia.

On Thursday, the department announced charges against 39-year-old Vikash Yadav, who remains at large. It comes just days after the RCMP warned that government of India officials continued to be connected to violent crimes in Canada, leading Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to expel six diplomats.

U.S. officials allege Yadav worked with Nikhil Gupta—who was previously charged and extradited from the Czech Republic earlier this year— as well as others in India, to “direct a plot to assassinate” a U.S. citizen from India living in New York City who advocates for the Khalistan movement, which promotes the creation of separate Sikh state within India.

India has deemed such activities to be extremist and strongly rejects them.

The U.S first announced the thwarted plot in 2023, which is when the connections to Nijjar’s slaying were first revealed.

According to the second unsealed indictment, Yadav “was employed by the cabinet secretariat of the government of India,” which is part of the Prime Minister’s Office and recruited Gupta to “orchestrate” the assassination of a target in the U.S. To carry out the plot, Gupta turned to someone he thought was a criminal associate but was in fact an undercover agent.

The indictment alleges Gupta stated that before the “29 (of June 2023) we have to finish four jobs,” which included the victim of the plot and, after that, “three in Canada.”

The unsealed indictment details how on the same evening masked gunman shot Nijjar, a prominent pro-Khalistan activist, outside a temple in Surrey, B.C., in June 2023, Yadav allegedly sent a video clip of Nijjar’s bloody body slumped in his vehicle to Gupta.

“About an hour later, Yadav sent Gupta the street address of the victim’s residence in New York City,” the documents said.

The following day, Gupta spoke to an undercover U.S agent and told him, that Nijjar was “#4, #3” on the list of planned victims and that they have “so many targets.”

“Gupta added that, in light of Nijjar’s murder, there was ‘now no need to wait’ to kill the victim,” with Yadav later sending Gupta a news article about the target, saying “(i)t’s (a) priority now.”

An Indian citizen told undercover U.S. agents that there were three more potential assassination victims in Canada after Nijjar’s murder. Four Indian nationals have since been charged in his death.

According to the U.S. Justice Department, Gupta repeatedly told undercover agents in early June of last year that others directing the plot from India “had extensive resources and were closely monitoring the process of the plotting.”

He also allegedly promised the agents whom he thought were hitman that if they were successful in carrying out the U.S. assassination, his co-conspirators in India would have “2-3” more for them “every month.”

In the days leading up to Nijjar’s murder, Gupta allegedly told undercover agents that there was a “big target” in Canada and that they would be doing the “New York (and) Canada (job)” on behalf of “the individuals directing the targeting plots from India.”

Ultimately, Nijjar’s murder was carried out by others.

Last week. Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said she was “always concerned” that there could be other assassination attempts in Canada that are linked to the Indian government like Nijjar’s.

Months after the slaying, Trudeau announced to the House of Commons that Canada had information linking Nijjar’s murder to India’s government, which sent the Canada-India relationship into a tailspin.

Relations further soured when on Monday,  RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme made the stunning announcement the Indian government was allegedly to connected to different crimes in Canada, from homicides to extortion. India has denied the allegations.

That same day, Canada expelled six Indian diplomats, including the country’s High Commissioner Sanja Kumar Verma. The Indian government revealed Verma had been declared a “person of interest” in their investigations.

The move was met with swift retaliation from India, who expelled six diplomats from Canada, calling the RCMP’s allegations “preposterous.”

Testifying at the federal inquiry into foreign interference on Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the Indian government rebuffed repeated requests by Canadian authorities to cooperate with the RCMP investigations, including the one into Nijjar’s murder.

Canada had the opportunity to make the 2023 G20 meeting in India “very uncomfortable” for the host country by going public with allegations of India’s involvement with Nijjar’s death, Trudeau said on Wednesday, adding he opted not to in the hopes the Indian government would collaborate quietly.

He said that approach has continued to fail.

“We returned to Canada, and it was obvious that the Indian government’s response, particularly through the media, was to instead attack Canada, to attack Canadians, to criticize us, to undermine our government and our governance, and, quite frankly, that integrity of our democracy,” Trudeau testified.

National Post [email protected]

Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here.

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.