According to a senior Biden administration official, US officials foiled a plot to assassinate a Sikh separatist in the US and warned India over suspicions the New Delhi government was involved.
According to the White House on Wednesday, the United States is taking the plot extremely seriously and has brought up the matter with the Indian government “at the senior-most levels.”
The plot was first revealed by the Financial Times.
White House spokesperson Adrienne Watson said Indian officials expressed “surprise and concern” when they were informed about the incident.
“We are treating this issue with utmost seriousness, and it has been raised by the U.S. government with the Indian government, including at the senior-most levels,” Watson said.
“They stated that activity of this nature was not their policy … We understand the Indian government is further investigating this issue and will have more to say about it in the coming days. We have conveyed our expectation that anyone deemed responsible should be held accountable,” she said.
The senior administration official claimed that Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who claims to be a dual citizen of the United States and Canada, was the intended victim of the thwarted plot.
The incident was reported two months after Canada, which India has denied, said there were “credible” claims that Indian agents were responsible for the June murder of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in a Vancouver suburb.
India’s anti-terror agency filed a case against Pannun on Monday stating that he warned flag carrier Air India passengers in video messages shared on social media this month that their lives were in danger.
For the Biden administration, which has been trying to forge close ties with India because of common worries about China’s growing influence, the matter is extremely sensitive.
When questioned about the FT report, Arindam Bagchi, a spokesperson for the Indian foreign ministry, stated that Washington had shared “some inputs” that were “examined by “relevant departments.”
Bagchi said the inputs pertained to the “nexus between organized criminals, gun runners, terrorists and others.”
“India takes such inputs seriously since it impinges on our own national security interests as well,” he said.
According to the Financial Times, its sources did not specify whether the plot was abandoned as a result of the US protest to India or whether the FBI stopped it. It stated that the protest was filed following President Joe Biden’s June welcome to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a state visit.
Currently spending the American Thanksgiving holiday on the island of Nantucket in Massachusetts, Biden is on vacation.
In addition to the diplomatic warning to India, the Financial Times reported that U.S. federal prosecutors have indicted at least one suspect in a New York district court under seal.
The US Department of Justice declined to comment
Similar to Nijjar, Pannun is in favor of the long-standing but now marginal demand to separate an independent Sikh homeland from India, known as Khalistan. New Delhi views this plan as a security risk because of a violent insurgency that occurred in the 1970s and 1980s.
Pannun was charged with conspiracy and terrorism, among other offenses, by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) of India. In video messages, it was claimed, he threatened to stop Air India from operating anywhere in the world.
The case is set against the historical backdrop of an Air India aircraft bombing in 1985 that occurred in Canada and resulted in the deaths of 329 people. Sikh militants were held responsible for the incident.
Pannun told Reuters on Tuesday that his message was to “boycott Air India not bomb.”
He told Reuters on Wednesday he would let the U.S. government respond “to the issue of threats to my life at the American soil from the Indian operatives.”
“Just like Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s assassination by the Indian agents on Canadian soil was a challenge to Canada’s sovereignty, the threat to (an) American citizen on American soil is a Challenge to America’s sovereign(ty),” he said.
Pannun is the general counsel of Sikhs for Justice, which India labelled an “unlawful association” in 2019, citing its involvement in extremist activities. Pannun was listed as an “individual terrorist” by India in 2020.
Ref: Routers
