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Indian national Nikhil Gupta pleads guilty in US court to assassination plot against Khalistani group leader Pannun
Nikhil Gupta pleaded guilty to three charges — murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Indian national Nikhil Gupta pleaded guilty on Friday to plotting the assassination of pro-Khalistan activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the US Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York confirmed.
Gupta, 54, appeared in the Manhattan federal court and admitted to paying $15,000 to a person he believed was a hitman to kill Pannun, an activist who leads the proscribed group Sikhs for Justice, based in New York City, in mid-2023. He had initially pleaded not guilty to the allegations.
US law enforcement authorities have alleged that Gupta was recruited for the murder-for-hire conspiracy by an employee of the Indian government. India has said that such action is contrary to government policy.
“Nikhil Gupta plotted to assassinate a US citizen in New York City,” said US 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.”
He pleaded guilty to three charges — murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit money laundering — which carry a combined maximum sentence of 40 years in prison. Gupta is scheduled to be sentenced by US District Judge Victor Marrero on May 29.
Gupta has been held without bail in Brooklyn since his extradition from the Czech Republic in June 2024.
According to the US indictment, an individual designated “CC-1” — described as a “Senior Field Officer” with responsibilities in “security management” and “intelligence” — contacted Gupta in May 2023 and recruited him to carry out the assassination.
The US government later identified CC-1 as Vikash Yadav, who previously served in the Central Reserve Police Force and was allegedly working in India’s cabinet secretariat, which houses the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), at the time of the conspiracy, according to the US indictment.
The US Justice Department formally indicted Yadav in October 2024. He remains at large in India but has been booked in an unrelated extortion case by the Delhi Police.
After Yadav was formally indicted in October 2024, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said: “The US State Department informed us that the individual in the Justice Department indictment is no longer employed by India. I confirm that he is no longer an employee of the Government of India.”
Prosecutors said Yadav recruited Gupta, who described himself in communications with Yadav as an international narcotics and weapons trafficker, to kill a “vocal critic of the Indian government” who “leads a US-based organisation that advocates for the secession of Punjab”. The intended target was later identified by media reports as Pannun, a dual US-Canadian citizen who heads the India-proscribed group Sikhs for Justice.
Citing intercepted communications between Gupta and Yadav, authorities alleged that Gupta approached a person he believed to be a criminal associate to find a hitman. The associate was in fact a confidential source for US authorities, who directed Gupta to an undercover law enforcement officer posing as a contract killer. Gupta, on Yadav’s instructions, agreed to pay $100,000 for the murder and handed over $15,000 as an advance in June 2023, prosecutors said.
US authorities have also linked the Pannun conspiracy to the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a pro-Khalistan separatist designated a terrorist by India, who was shot dead by gunmen outside a Sikh temple in British Columbia, Canada. Just hours after the killing, Yadav purportedly sent Gupta a video of Nijjar’s body, according to the indictment.
“On or about June 19, 2023, the day after the Nijjar murder, Gupta told the UC that Nijjar ‘was also the target’ and ‘we have so many targets.’ Gupta added that, in light of Nijjar’s murder, there was ‘now no need to wait’ on killing the Victim. On or about June 20, 2023, Yadav sent Gupta a news article about the victim and messaged Gupta, ‘[i]t’s [a] priority now’,” according to the US Justice Department.
In response to the allegations, the Indian government said it took US “inputs” seriously and constituted a high-level enquiry committee in November 2023 to look into the matter.
“After a long enquiry, the committee has submitted its report to the government and recommended legal action against an individual, whose earlier criminal links and antecedents also came to notice during the enquiry,” the ministry of home affairs said in January 2025.
