India’s intelligence service has aggressively targeted Indian diaspora populations in Asia, Europe and North America, officials said.
By Greg Miller, Gerry Shih and Ellen Nakashima, The Washington PostPresident Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised a toast with ginger ale at the White House state dinner June 22, 2023.
The assassination is a “priority now,” wrote Vikram Yadav, an officer in India’s spy agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, or RAW, according to current and former U.S. and Indian security officials. In reports that have been closely held within the American government, U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that the operation targeting Pannun was approved by the RAW chief at the time, Samant Goel. That finding is consistent with accounts provided to The Washington Post by former senior Indian security officials who had knowledge of the operation and said Goel was under extreme pressure to eliminate the alleged threat of Sikh extremists overseas. U.S.
The Indian intelligence service has ramped up its surveillance and harassment of Sikhs and other groups overseas perceived as disloyal to the Modi government, officials said. RAW officers and agents have faced arrest, expulsion and reprimand in countries including Australia, Germany and Britain, according to officials who provided details to The Post that have not previously been made public.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs declined to respond to detailed questions submitted by The Post or provide comment for this article. Responding to questions raised by a Post reporter at a news briefing last week, spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said that India was still investigating the allegations and that the Pannun case “equally impacts our national security.”
Even the U.S. criminal case reflects this restraint. Senior officials at the Justice Department and FBI had pushed to prosecute Yadav, officials said, a step After the plot against Pannun failed, the decision to entrust Yadav with the high-risk mission sparked recriminations within the agency, former officials said.
Petr Slepicka, a lawyer in Prague who represents Gupta, declined to comment on the case except to say that his client denies the charges against him. In court filings in India, Gupta’s family members described him as an innocent “middle-class businessman” whose arrest was a case of mistaken identity. They said he traveled to Prague “for tourism” and to explore new markets for a “handicraft” business, according to the court filings.
From that moment, U.S. agents had an inside but incomplete view of the unfolding conspiracy. They orchestrated Gupta’s introduction to a supposed assassin who was actually an undercover agent, according to court filings. They captured images of cash changing hands in a car in New York City - a $15,000 down payment on a job that was to cost $100,000 when completed.At one point, the indictment said, U.S.
The poster for Hardeep Singh Nijjar —"shaheed" means"martyr." Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has accused India of complicity in his killing. draw him out of India and into a friendly jurisdiction, U.S. agents used their DEA informant to persuade Gupta to travel to the Czech Republic for what he was led to believe would be a clandestine meeting with his American contact, according to officials familiar with the operation.
The Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara, a Sikh place of worship in Surrey. Nijjar was fatally shot inside his pickup truck in the building's parking lot. Though Yadav served as RAW’s point man, current and former officials said the operation involved higher-ranking officials with ties to Modi’s inner circle. Among those suspected of involvement or awareness are Goel and Doval, though U.S. officials said there is no direct evidence so far of their complicity.
He also exhibited a willingness to engage with the criminal underworld. In 2005, after retiring as head of India’s domestic intelligence service, he was inadvertently detained by Mumbai police while meeting with a reputed gangster. Doval was seeking to enlist one crime boss to assassinate another, according to media reports later confirmed by senior Indian officials.
“We always had to go to the NSA for clearance for any operations,” said A.S. Dulat, who served as RAW chief in the early 2000s, referring to the national security adviser. Dulat emphasized in an interview with The Post Foreign officers were caught monitoring “their country’s diaspora community,” trying to penetrate local police departments and stealing information about sensitive security systems at Australian airports, Burgess said in a 2021 speech. He didn’t name the service, but Australian officials confirmed to The Post that it was RAW.to root out agents RAW had recruited within Sikh communities.
RAW’s operations in Western countries during Modi’s tenure have been overwhelmingly aimed at followers of the Sikh religion, especially a minority faction seeking to revive the largely dormant cause of creating a separate state called “Khalistan.” whose leaders included Pannun and Nijjar - sought to rekindle the movement with unofficial referendums on Sikh statehood and with protests that at times have seemed to glorify violence. A parade in Canada last year included a float depicting Indira Gandhi’s assassination, and Khalistan supporters have stormed and defaced Indian diplomatic facilities in Western cities.
In an interview with The Post, Pannun denied engaging in terrorism and said he was targeted because of his activism on behalf of Sikhs. “They wanted to assassinate me so they can stop the ongoing Khalistan referendum movement for the secession of Punjab from Indian occupation,” he said.A view this month of a poster of Nijjar at the Guru Nanak Gurdwara in Surrey. Modi has been dismissive.
the “professional” killing of Khalistanis outside India’s borders. Among those killed was Paramjit Singh Panjwar, 63, a leader of a militant group called the Khalistan Commando Force, who was shot dead last May near a park in Lahore by two gunmen who fled on motorcycle, according to media reports. Shortly afterward, in July, the White House convened a series of “deputies committee” meetings led by deputy national security adviser Jon Finer and involving Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco and Deputy CIA Director David Cohen.
In early August, the administration dispatched CIA Director Burns to New Delhi to confront his counterparts with intelligence on the Pannun plot and give Modi’s government a chance to resolve the matter internally. The United States would refrain from punitive responses but pushed India to hold those responsible accountable. The message was reinforced in subsequent closed-door conversations, including a private meeting in New Delhi in September between Modi and Biden, officials said.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment on the India case, saying it is an “ongoing matter.” Relations between the countries went into a tailspin. Canada withdrew 41 diplomats from India after Modi’s government threatened to revoke their legally protected status. Canadian officials who traveled to New Delhi for meetings with Doval and others said they were greeted with denials of Indian involvement and lectures on alleged Sikh terrorism.
Yadav had told Gupta there were “three or four” other people RAW wanted dead once Nijjar and Pannun had been assassinated, according to the affidavit. Gupta, in turn, told a U.S. agent posing as a hit man that there are “so many targets.”
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