An Indian government employee who described himself as a “senior field officer” responsible for intelligence ordered the assassination of a Sikh separatist in New York City in May, U.S. prosecutors alleged Wednesday.
The government employee, who was not named in the indictment filed in a federal court in Manhattan, recruited an Indian national named Nikhil Gupta to hire a hit man to carry out the assassination, which was foiled by U.S. authorities, according to prosecutors.
The court filing did not name the victim, but senior Biden administration officials say the target was Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, general counsel for the New York-based Sikhs for Justice, a group that advocates the creation of an independent Sikh state called Khalistan within India.
I remain wildly uncertain of how to think about all this. It seems so out of character for the Modi government to be placing hits in allied countries, but I can’t think of much reason why the US would lie here. In every other sense the US has bent over backwards to pull India into its orbit, giving them no strings attached weapons, GE engines, and so on, without even a promise to shift position towards Russia at all. Why jettison all that now? (a question for both sides).
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Notes -
India & the West
Reportedly the United States apparently stopped India from assassinating another Sikh separatist in June, this time not in Canada but actually on US soil.
I remain wildly uncertain of how to think about all this. It seems so out of character for the Modi government to be placing hits in allied countries, but I can’t think of much reason why the US would lie here. In every other sense the US has bent over backwards to pull India into its orbit, giving them no strings attached weapons, GE engines, and so on, without even a promise to shift position towards Russia at all. Why jettison all that now? (a question for both sides).
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