Complaint alleges that senior officials at RAW engaged Nikhil Gupta to hire assassins in US to murder Pannun
The New York based attorney and General Counsel of pro-Khalistan group Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, through his attorneys has filed a civil lawsuit in the US Federal District Court against the Government of India and senior Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) officials for their “unprecedented attempt to assassinate a US citizen on US soil”.
The legal action announcement was made at a global press conference addressed by the Khalistani leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun and his lawyers Matthew Borden, Partner and co-founder BraunHagey and Borden LLP and Richard Rogers, Partner at Global Diligence LLP. The law action at United States District Court, New York, by Pannun and his lawyers against the Indian government and senior officials of Indian intelligence agency — namely, Ajit Doval, Samant Goel, Vikram Yadav and Nikhil Gupta.
The complaint alleges that senior officials at India’s spy agency RAW, which report directly to India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, engaged weapons trafficker and RAW agent Nikhil Gupta to hire assassins in the US to murder Pannun in New York. This scheme was foiled when the hitmen Gupta hired turned out to be undercover federal agents.
According to the complaint, the plot was part of a broader effort to kill prominent Sikh activists who advocate for the right to self-determination for Sikh people over the Indian region of Punjab, critically speak against the persecution of religious minorities, and condemn human rights abuses by the regime of PM Modi.
Attorney Pannun’s murder was supposed to occur around the same time as India’s (successful) assassination of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar — a close ally of Pannun and Khalistan Referendum Canada chapter head — in Canada on June 18, 2023.
The US Department of Justice has indicted Gupta in New York on “murder for hire” charges for the plot targeting Pannun, while Canada has recently arrested and charged four Indian nationals with first-degree murder for killing Nijjar.
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