MODI'S SECRET POLICE
US prosecutors say plots to assassinate Sikh leaders were part of a campaign of planned killingsThe attack plans were foiled, prosecutors said, because the hitman was actually an undercover U.S. agent.
Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun is pictured in his office on Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023, in New York. (AP Photo/ Ted Shaffrey)
December 1, 2023
By Larry Neumeister
NEW YORK (AP) — A foiled plot to assassinate a prominent Sikh separatist leader in New York, just days after another activist’s killing, was meant to precede a string of other politically motivated murders in the United States and Canada, according to U.S. prosecutors.
In electronic communications and audio and video calls secretly recorded or obtained by U.S. law enforcement, organizers of the plot talked last spring about plans to kill someone in California and at least three other people in Canada, in addition to the victim in New York, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday.
The goal was to kill at least four people in the two countries by June 29, and then more after that, prosecutors contend.
After Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh activist who had been exiled from India, was shot and killed outside a cultural center in Surrey, British Columbia, on June 18, one of the men charged with orchestrating the planned assassinations told a person he had hired as a hitman that he should act urgently to kill another activist, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.
“We have so many targets,” Nikhil Gupta said in a recorded audio call, according to the indictment. “We have so many targets. But the good news is this, the good news is this: Now no need to wait.”
He urged the hitman to act quickly because Pannun, a U.S. citizen living in New York, would likely be more cautious after Nijjar’s slaying.
“We got the go-ahead to go anytime, even today, tomorrow — as early as possible,” he told a go-between as he instructed the hitman to kill Pannun even if there were other people with him. “Put everyone down,” he said, according to the indictment.
The attack plans were foiled, prosecutors said, because the hitman was actually an undercover U.S. agent.
The U.S. attorney in Manhattan announced charges Wednesday against Gupta, and said in court papers that the plot to kill Pannun was directed by an official in the Indian government. That government official was not charged in the indictment or identified by name, but the court filing described him as a “senior field officer” with responsibilities in security management and intelligence.
Indian officials have denied any complicity in Nijjar’s slaying. External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said Wednesday that the Indian government had set up a high-level inquiry after U.S. authorities raised concerns about the plot to kill Pannun.
Court filings revealed that even before Nijjar’s killing in Canada, U.S. law enforcement officials had become aware of a plot against activists who were advocating for the secession from India of the northern Punjab state, where Sikhs are a majority.
U.S. officials said they began investigating when Gupta, in his search for a hitman, contacted a narcotics trafficker who turned out to be a Drug Enforcement Administration informant.
Over the ensuing weeks, the pair communicated by phone, video and text messages, eventually looping in their hired assassin — the undercover agent.
The Indian government official told Gupta that he had a target in New York and a target in California, the indictment said. They ultimately settled on a $100,000 price and by June 3, Gupta was urging his criminal contact in America to “finish him brother, finish him, don’t take too much time …. push these guys, push these guys … finish the job.”
During a June 9 call, Gupta told the narcotics trafficker that the murder of Pannun would change the hitman’s life because “we will give more bigger job more, more job every month, every month 2-3 job,” according to the indictment.
It was unclear from the indictment whether U.S. authorities had learned anything about the specific plan to kill Nijjar before his ambush on June 18.
The indictment portrayed Gupta as boasting that he and his associates in India were behind both the Canadian and New York assassination plots. He allegedly told the Drug Enforcement Administration informant on June 12 that there was a “big target” in Canada and on June 16 told him: “We are doing their job, brother. We are doing their New York (and) Canada (job),” referring to individuals directing the plots from India.
After Nijjar was killed, Gupta told the informant that Nijjar was the target he had mentioned as the potential Canadian “job” and added: “We didn’t give to (the undercover agent) this job, so some other guy did this job … in Canada.”
On June 30, Gupta was arrested in the Czech Republic at the request of the United States after arriving there on a trip from India. Federal authorities have not said when he might be brought to the United States to face murder-for-hire and conspiracy charges. It was unclear who would provide legal representation if he arrives in the U.S.
Pannun told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday that he will continue his work.
“They will kill me. But I don’t fear the death,” he said.
He mocked India’s claim that it is conducting its own investigation into the assassination plots.
“The only thing, I think, (the) Indian government is going to investigate (is) why their hitman could not kill one person. That’s what they will be investigating,” he said.
Pannun said he rejects the Indian government’s decision to label him a terrorist.
“We are the one who are fighting India’s violence with the words. We are the one who are fighting India’s bullets with the ballot,” he said. “They are giving money, hundreds of thousands, to kill me. Let the world decide who is terrorist and who is not a terrorist.”
Some international affairs experts told the AP that it was unlikely the incidents would seriously damage the relationship between the U.S. and India.
”In most cases, if Washington accuses a foreign government of staging an assassination on its soil, U.S. relations with that government would plunge into deep crisis,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Centre’s South Asia institute. “But the relationship with India is a special case. Trust and goodwill are baked into the relationship, thanks to rapidly expanding cooperation and increasingly convergent interests.”
Derek Grossman, Indo-Pacific analyst at the Rand Corp., said the Biden administration has demonstrated that it is prioritizing the need to leverage India as part of its strategy to counter Chinese power.
“I think publicizing the details of the thwarted plot will have very little, if any, impact on the deepening U.S.-India strategic partnership,” he said.
___
Associated Press writers Krutika Pathi in New Delhi and Ted Shaffrey in New York contributed to this report.
Alleged Plot to Kill Sikh Separatist Highlights Thorn in India’s Side
The charges are rooted in a decades-old dispute over the demand by some Sikhs for a sovereign state known as Khalistan carved out of northern India.
The charges are rooted in a decades-old dispute over the demand by some Sikhs for a sovereign state known as Khalistan carved out of northern India.
Members of the Sikh community protesting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India in Washington in 2020.
Credit...Drew Angerer/Getty Images
By Sameer Yasir
Reporting from New Delhi
Dec. 1, 2023
The federal indictment this week of an Indian national in an alleged murder-for-hire scheme targeting a Sikh separatist in New York threatens to damage ties between the United States and India just as the Biden administration has been courting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
The charges are rooted in a decades-old dispute: the demand by some Sikhs for a sovereign state known as Khalistan carved out of northern India, which the Modi government opposes.
In addition to directing the unsuccessful plot in New York, the federal indictment said, an Indian government official organized the killing of a Sikh separatist in Canada who was fatally shot in June by masked gunmen outside a temple in Vancouver.
The idea of Khalistan is rooted in Sikhism, a religion with 26 million followers around the world, of which about 23 million live in the state of Punjab in northern India. Sikhs make up less than 2 percent of India’s population of 1.4 billion.
India has outlawed the Khalistani independence movement, and it has only limited support inside Punjab. But it remains a rallying cry among the roughly 3 million members of the Sikh diaspora, particularly in Canada, Australia and Britain.
The Khalistan movement
Sikhism was founded in the 15th century in Punjab, and in 1699 an influential leader of the faith at the time, Guru Gobind Singh, espoused the idea of Sikh rule. He also gave it a political vision, casting Sikh self-rule as a remedy for decades of misrule under Muslims and corruption among Sikh leaders.
By Sameer Yasir
Reporting from New Delhi
Dec. 1, 2023
The federal indictment this week of an Indian national in an alleged murder-for-hire scheme targeting a Sikh separatist in New York threatens to damage ties between the United States and India just as the Biden administration has been courting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
The charges are rooted in a decades-old dispute: the demand by some Sikhs for a sovereign state known as Khalistan carved out of northern India, which the Modi government opposes.
In addition to directing the unsuccessful plot in New York, the federal indictment said, an Indian government official organized the killing of a Sikh separatist in Canada who was fatally shot in June by masked gunmen outside a temple in Vancouver.
The idea of Khalistan is rooted in Sikhism, a religion with 26 million followers around the world, of which about 23 million live in the state of Punjab in northern India. Sikhs make up less than 2 percent of India’s population of 1.4 billion.
India has outlawed the Khalistani independence movement, and it has only limited support inside Punjab. But it remains a rallying cry among the roughly 3 million members of the Sikh diaspora, particularly in Canada, Australia and Britain.
The Khalistan movement
Sikhism was founded in the 15th century in Punjab, and in 1699 an influential leader of the faith at the time, Guru Gobind Singh, espoused the idea of Sikh rule. He also gave it a political vision, casting Sikh self-rule as a remedy for decades of misrule under Muslims and corruption among Sikh leaders.
The Golden Temple, the holiest shrine of Sikhism, in Amritsar, India, where in 1984 hundreds were killed in a raid ordered by India’s prime minister, Indira Gandhi, to arrest insurgents hiding there.Credit...Atul Loke for The New York Times
After the Indian subcontinent was partitioned along religious lines in 1947, some Sikh leaders tried to establish a Punjabi-speaking Sikh state, leading to friction between Sikh groups and the Indian government, which was then led by Jawaharlal Nehru.
That effort never came to pass, but the dream of Khalistan survived. In the 1970s and 1980s, it gained traction among Sikhs in Punjab and the worldwide Sikh diaspora. The movement eventually inspired an armed insurgency that lasted for more than a decade. India responded with force, using torture, illegal detentions and extrajudicial killings to suppress the movement.
In June 1984, India’s prime minister at the time, Indira Gandhi, ordered troops to storm the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine of Sikhism, in Amritsar, to arrest insurgents hiding there. Hundreds were killed in that raid.
Among those who died during the raid was Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a leader of the armed rebellion, who many historians say was initially supported by Mrs. Gandhi’s government, which used him as a vehicle to split the Sikh movement.
In October 1984, Ms. Gandhi was assassinated by two Sikh bodyguards, a killing that prompted a wave of violence that left thousands dead, and included looting and arson against Sikh homes and businesses.
In 1985, separatists linked to the Sikh diaspora bombed an Air India flight, en route to London from Toronto, killing more than 300 people.
Across northern India, from the mountains of Kashmir to the plains of Punjab, people still paste stickers of Mr. Bhindranwale on cars, motorcycles and the front gates of homes as a symbol of Sikh resistance.
But by the early 1990s the insurgency had largely been crushed in Punjab, with hundreds of rebels arrested, killed or driven underground. Hope for a more inclusive future for Sikhs took hold and, between 2004 and 2014, India had its first, and only, Sikh prime minister, Manmohan Singh.
How did Khalistan become an issue among the Sikh diaspora?
During and after the Sikh insurgency, the growing diaspora started demanding accountability for human rights violations committed by Indian forces in Punjab.
A large number of those Sikhs who left India during the separatist violence, or in the years immediately after it, carried wounds that fueled their advocacy for a Khalistani state. But political observers said those activists, while often turning out for protests against India, have largely remained unorganized.
After the Indian subcontinent was partitioned along religious lines in 1947, some Sikh leaders tried to establish a Punjabi-speaking Sikh state, leading to friction between Sikh groups and the Indian government, which was then led by Jawaharlal Nehru.
That effort never came to pass, but the dream of Khalistan survived. In the 1970s and 1980s, it gained traction among Sikhs in Punjab and the worldwide Sikh diaspora. The movement eventually inspired an armed insurgency that lasted for more than a decade. India responded with force, using torture, illegal detentions and extrajudicial killings to suppress the movement.
In June 1984, India’s prime minister at the time, Indira Gandhi, ordered troops to storm the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine of Sikhism, in Amritsar, to arrest insurgents hiding there. Hundreds were killed in that raid.
Among those who died during the raid was Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a leader of the armed rebellion, who many historians say was initially supported by Mrs. Gandhi’s government, which used him as a vehicle to split the Sikh movement.
In October 1984, Ms. Gandhi was assassinated by two Sikh bodyguards, a killing that prompted a wave of violence that left thousands dead, and included looting and arson against Sikh homes and businesses.
In 1985, separatists linked to the Sikh diaspora bombed an Air India flight, en route to London from Toronto, killing more than 300 people.
Across northern India, from the mountains of Kashmir to the plains of Punjab, people still paste stickers of Mr. Bhindranwale on cars, motorcycles and the front gates of homes as a symbol of Sikh resistance.
But by the early 1990s the insurgency had largely been crushed in Punjab, with hundreds of rebels arrested, killed or driven underground. Hope for a more inclusive future for Sikhs took hold and, between 2004 and 2014, India had its first, and only, Sikh prime minister, Manmohan Singh.
How did Khalistan become an issue among the Sikh diaspora?
During and after the Sikh insurgency, the growing diaspora started demanding accountability for human rights violations committed by Indian forces in Punjab.
A large number of those Sikhs who left India during the separatist violence, or in the years immediately after it, carried wounds that fueled their advocacy for a Khalistani state. But political observers said those activists, while often turning out for protests against India, have largely remained unorganized.
Protesting outside India’s consulate in Toronto in September.
Credit...Carlos Osorio/Reuters
While blessed with some of the country’s richest agricultural land, Punjab has long struggled with unemployment and drug abuse. Young men often force older relatives to sell land to underwrite their emigration. And once they move overseas, their social interactions are often limited to socializing with other Sikhs during visits to temples.
Sikhs waving Khalistani flags have become a familiar sight outside Indian consulates. At one point a dentist in London, Jagjit Singh Chauhan, even declared himself president of a “Republic of Khalistan.”
Alarmed by the protests, India has responded by demanding that countries, including Canada, take action against Sikh activists, whom New Delhi considers a “threat” to its sovereignty.
Is the Punjab independence movement a threat to India?
Political leaders in Punjab say the Sikh independence movement there has been practically nonexistent for decades. But the Indian government has recently been sounding the alarm and arrested a separatist leader early this year, fearful that a resurgence in India could provoke violence there.
While blessed with some of the country’s richest agricultural land, Punjab has long struggled with unemployment and drug abuse. Young men often force older relatives to sell land to underwrite their emigration. And once they move overseas, their social interactions are often limited to socializing with other Sikhs during visits to temples.
Sikhs waving Khalistani flags have become a familiar sight outside Indian consulates. At one point a dentist in London, Jagjit Singh Chauhan, even declared himself president of a “Republic of Khalistan.”
Alarmed by the protests, India has responded by demanding that countries, including Canada, take action against Sikh activists, whom New Delhi considers a “threat” to its sovereignty.
Is the Punjab independence movement a threat to India?
Political leaders in Punjab say the Sikh independence movement there has been practically nonexistent for decades. But the Indian government has recently been sounding the alarm and arrested a separatist leader early this year, fearful that a resurgence in India could provoke violence there.
Praying at a gurdwara, a Sikh place of worship, in Punjab, a majority-Sikh state in India
.Credit...Atul Loke for The New York Times
There have been sporadic incidents of violence inside Punjab, including bombings and killings of religious leaders, but the police there have linked the violence to gang rivalry that sometimes transcends borders.
In recent years, New Delhi has also accused Sikh separatists in Canada of vandalizing Hindu temples and, in one instance, attacking the offices of the Indian High Commission during a protest in March.
India’s relations with Canada were already strained before the June killing of the Canadian Sikh leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who supported independence for Khalistan. New Delhi has accused Canada of harboring separatist militants linked to the Khalistan movement.
India’s government has repeatedly asserted that any failure by foreign governments to tackle Sikh separatism would be an obstacle to good relations with that country.
Sameer Yasir is a reporter based in New Delhi. He joined The Times in 2020. More about Sameer Yasir
There have been sporadic incidents of violence inside Punjab, including bombings and killings of religious leaders, but the police there have linked the violence to gang rivalry that sometimes transcends borders.
In recent years, New Delhi has also accused Sikh separatists in Canada of vandalizing Hindu temples and, in one instance, attacking the offices of the Indian High Commission during a protest in March.
India’s relations with Canada were already strained before the June killing of the Canadian Sikh leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who supported independence for Khalistan. New Delhi has accused Canada of harboring separatist militants linked to the Khalistan movement.
India’s government has repeatedly asserted that any failure by foreign governments to tackle Sikh separatism would be an obstacle to good relations with that country.
Sameer Yasir is a reporter based in New Delhi. He joined The Times in 2020. More about Sameer Yasir
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