Muhammad Hamza, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Pointer

The man who U.S. prosecutors allege conspired with an employee of the Indian government to kill the leader of a Sikh separatist movement in New York pleaded guilty on February 13 to his role in a foiled assassination plot that Canadian government officials say is part of a wider, transnational effort by the Hindu nationalist BJP government in New Delhi to silence Sikh advocates in North America. 

Nikhil Gupta, described by the U.S. Justice Department as a known criminal the Indian government used to carry out the murders of Sikhs in North America, now faces up to 40 years in prison after admitting his role in connection with all three counts detailed in a second superseding indictment released by the Justice Department in October 2024, including murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 29, according to a press release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

“Nikhil Gupta plotted to assassinate a U.S. citizen in New York City,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton. “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, and he will face justice. Our message to all nefarious foreign actors should be clear: steer clear of the United States and our people.”

James C. Barnacle Jr., FBI Assistant Director in charge, said that “At the direction and coordination of an Indian government employee” Gupta plotted to kill “a United States citizen on American soil, facilitating a foreign adversary’s unlawful effort to silence a vocal critic of the Indian government.” 

At the centre of the case is Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a New York-based lawyer with Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) and dual American-Canadian citizen who was an intended target of the murder-for-hire plot that was foiled by U.S. law enforcement, and was directly linked to the successful plot to kill a Canadian Sikh advocate, who worked closely with Pannun, in B.C..

Pannun led a global referendum for an independent Sikh nation, known as Khalistan, to be carved from the Northwestern Indian state of Punjab, where the religion’s followers make up the majority.

In a written statement to The Pointer, Pannun thanked the  U.S. government and law enforcement officials for their unwavering commitment to justice, national security and the safety of American citizens.

“I also extend my deepest appreciation to the DEA, the FBI leadership, and the agents who risk their lives and work undercover to protect American sovereignty and uphold the Constitution of the United States,” he wrote.

Pannun condemned the Indian government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for its alleged role in what he describes as transnational repression targeting North American Sikh advocates.

“Nikhil Gupta’s guilty plea is not merely the conviction of one man. Gupta’s guilty plea is judicial confirmation that India’s Modi government orchestrated a structured murder-for-hire assassination plot on American soil,” he wrote.

“The Modi government’s transnational assassination plots to silence dissenting political opinion are an act of terrorism and an attack on America’s sovereignty.”

In response to Gupta’s guilty plea, Sikh advocates believe the case undermines New Delhi’s consistent denials of any involvement in targeting Sikhs across North America.

“The Modi government’s claim that the Pannun murder-for-hire conspiracy was the act of a ‘rogue agent’ collapses under the weight of the evidence presented in federal court,” Pannun wrote.

Balpreet Singh, legal counsel for the World Sikh Organization (WSO) of Canada, which advocates on a wide range of issues and is based in Ottawa, echoed the same concerns in an interview with The Pointer. “Nikhil Gupta’s guilty plea is proof that India has been carrying out a campaign of transnational oppression and assassinations.”

Singh said the second superseding indictment and the evidence presented to the court, even without a trial, make it clear that the BJP government of India has been involved in the campaign of assassinations and transnational repression against Sikhs across Canada.

In December, a community town hall in Brampton heard from numerous residents and business owners frustrated about the lack of action from the federal government and police to deal with ongoing threats the Sikh community is facing at the hands of the Indian government, including extortion and violence.  

“We know that the root of the violence that impacted our communities originates in India. This isn’t a law-and-order issue or a regional issue; it’s a national security issue,” Prabjot Singh, legal counsel with the Sikh Federation of Canada, said at the packed town hall.

Gupta’s guilty plea marks a significant development following the 2023 murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, another prominent Sikh advocate and close associate of Pannun. Nijjar was shot dead in the parking lot of a Gurdwara in Surrey, British Columbia. 

Following his assassination, Justin Trudeau, the former Canadian prime minister, repeatedly voiced concerns over India’s meddling in Canadian affairs and accused the Modi BJP government of planning illegal operations, including the planned murder of Canadian Sikhs on Canadian soil. While pointing to the first released indictment by the U.S. Justice Department, he told the House of Commons that the Indian government was behind the killing of Nijjar.

After a 2024 investigation by the RCMP that revealed the alleged role of the Modi government in attacks against Sikh Canadians, allegedly using criminal elements, Trudeau made statements that sent shockwaves from Vancouver to New Delhi. The former prime minister said all Canadians will be protected here at home, vowing to use the full reach of the country’s justice and law enforcement systems to go after those responsible for Mr. Nijjar’s assassination. 

“We will never tolerate the involvement of a foreign government threatening and killing Canadian citizens on Canadian soil—a deeply unacceptable violation of Canada’s sovereignty and of international law,” he said in 2024.

The relationship between the two countries was deeply fractured and both sent diplomats from the other nation home.

Contrary to Trudeau’s tough stance, current policy under Prime Minister Mark Carney is more focused on strengthening trade ties with India; he met with Modi at the G7 conference, and two of his cabinet ministers flew to India late last year, with officials from both countries now talking about repairing the fracture and creating new economic ties.

Sikh advocates have been critical of the way Carney has prioritized economic concerns over Canadian values.

The turnaround was reflected recently when Canadian Justice Department officials reportedly requested a federal court to grant permission to withhold “sensitive” information from the upcoming murder trial of the four men accused of killing Nijjar.

The lawyers representing the Attorney General of Canada filed an application in December to keep some evidence confidential, arguing that releasing it “would be injurious to international relations and national security.”

Reaction was swift.

“Any attempt to conceal evidence relating to India’s role in the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar under the guise of protecting ‘international relations’ is unacceptable,” the WSO stated in a press release. “The concealment of evidence would amount to a denial of justice, not only for the Nijjar family but for the entire Sikh community and for all Canadians who expect accountability when foreign states are involved in violence and criminal activity on Canadian soil.”

Gupta’s role in the thwarted attempt to murder Pannun was documented in the second superseding indictment released by the Justice Department in 2024. The unsealed document, which was peppered with quotes from wiretap and other surveillance material, explicitly linked the assassination of Nijjar to Vikash Yadav, the Indian government agent who allegedly directed the murder plot to kill Pannun.

“Nijjar was an associate of the victim (Pannun)… just hours after the Nijjar murder, YADAV sent GUPTA a video clip that showed Nijjar’s bloody body slumped in his vehicle.”

Yadav was charged with murder-for-hire and money laundering charges in 2024; he allegedly recruited Gupta to orchestrate the assassination of Pannun in New York. He has yet to be arrested on those charges and remains wanted by the FBI. 

Nijjar was described as one of the “targets” of the broader plot that involved Pannun. Yadav, according to the indictment, arranged to have Indian criminal charges against Gupta wiped away in exchange for organizing assassinations in Canada and the U.S.. According to a press release from the Department of Justice, Gupta is described as an international narcotics and weapons trafficker.

“The boss,” Yadav told Gupta, had cleared his criminal problems in India. “Nobody will ever bother you again,” the Indian government agent told Gupta, according to the surveillance transcripts in the indictment.

“We will be needing one good team in Canada,” Gupta then allegedly told one of the co-conspirators, describing Mr. Nijjar as a “big target” in Canada.

After receiving the video clip from Yadav showing Nijjar’s bloodied body in his car and instructions from the Indian agent to have Pannun killed immediately, Gupta, according to the surveillance material, told a hitman he hired, that before June 29, 2023, “we have to finish four jobs”: Pannun’s assassination in the U.S., “and three in Canada.”

Yadav offered $100,000 for a contract hit and recruited Gupta to arrange the murder of the Sikh separatist leader in New York. The investigation also detailed that Gupta, around May 2023, contacted a confidential source he believed was a criminal associate but was actually an undercover agent working with U.S. law enforcement, and asked if he knew anyone willing to carry out murder-for-hire in the U.S..

Later, the hitman was hired to carry out the plot, and they discussed the logistics and the price for the murder.

“We are ready to pay $150,000… the offer will go higher depending upon the quality of the work…and if it’s done as soon as possible,” the government employee said when discussing the payment for killing Pannun. Gupta replied with a screenshot from the confidential source requesting $100,000. Yadav, the alleged government employee, agreed, adding that while an advance payment was not possible, “the whole money will be paid within 24 hours after the work is done.”

Then, in June of the same year, Yadav allegedly provided Gupta with the personal information of Pannun, including his home address in New York, phone number, and information of his day-to-day routine, which he then shared with the undercover agent, advising him not to carry out the assassination near the time of an official state visit to the U.S. by Modi, which was scheduled to begin on or around June 20, 2023.

The U.S. indictments are not the only evidence linking the Indian government to transnational crimes. In October 2024, the RCMP released an explosive report alleging the Modi government’s involvement in attacks against Sikh Canadians by using criminal elements linked to the Lawrence Bishnoi gang.

RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme, together with Assistant Commissioner Brigitte Gauvin, said the Bishnoi gang has connections to the Indian government and is involved in criminal acts against Sikh Canadians.

“I won’t be providing any further details in regard to the specificity of those investigations, but what we have seen from an RCMP perspective is the use of organized crime elements,” Gauvin detailed. “And I will say… It’s been publicly attributed and claimed by one organized crime group in particular, which is the Bishnoi group.”

“That’s what we are seeing here in Canada, and we believe that that group is connected to agents of the government of India.”

Since then, the wave of criminal activity allegedly linked to India has not stopped. 

In May last year, Harjeet Singh Dhadda, 51, a commercial insurance broker, was shot multiple times in broad daylight in a Mississauga parking lot after he refused to pay $500,000 to extortionists linked to the Bishnoi gang.

His daughter, Gurleen Dhadda, told Indian media at the time that her father had been receiving threats and phone calls over the past few years. The family reported them to Peel Police, but claim they were not taken seriously. According to the media reports, the Bishnoi gang, a criminal entity working for the Indian government, has taken responsibility for Dhadda’s murder. Three men from B.C. were arrested in June and July and charged with first-degree murder. 

The direct links between the Modi government and North American assassination plots were also documented in explosive reporting by The Washington Post in 2024. Unnamed Canadian officials claimed a command “chain”, including Indian diplomats in Canada “collect intelligence on alleged Sikh separatists” used by Indian intelligence to target Canadian citizens. The reporting singled out a jailed Indian organized crime leader named Lawrence Bishnoi, head of the Bishnoi gang, who allegedly has helped the Modi government attack Sikhs here.

The newspaper reported the senior politician orchestrating this alleged criminal enterprise is Amit Shah, according to Canadian officials The Post spoke with. He is India’s controversial Minister of External Affairs and Home Minister, who oversees the country’s national security. Shah has made no secret of his views about religious minorities in the country, calling Muslims “termites” and “cockroaches” in keeping with the BJP’s ultra-Hindu-nationalist position that India must erase all remnants of culture, religion, and history that are not part of the Hindu tradition. 

“We know they are involved in the Nijjar killing, in other murders and in ongoing violence — actual violence — in Canada,” a senior Canadian official told The Washington Post. 

According to The Post, “Canadian officials shared details about the references to Shah and other evidence with India’s national security adviser, Ajit Doval, at a secret meeting in Singapore on Saturday (October 12, 2024). Canadians who took part in the meeting included Trudeau’s national security adviser, Nathalie Drouin, and Deputy Foreign Minister David Morrison, as well as a top RCMP official.”

While talking about Gupta’s guilty plea, Pannun warned that if senior Indian officials are not held accountable, their criminal actions will not be limited only to Sikh activists in the U.S. and Canada.

“Today the target was a human rights lawyer; tomorrow it could be a Member of Congress,” he told The Pointer.

Email: muhammad.hamza@thepointer.com

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