Even as Canada has been levelling allegations against India for alleged involvement in the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, based on “no evidence and mere intelligence", which India has categorically called “baseless", the United States (US) Justice Department has announced criminal charges against Vikash Yadav, a former Indian government employee.
The department has accused Vikash Yadav of allegedly orchestrating a failed plot to kill another Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who resides in New York City. The US has charged Vikash Yadav, previously associated with the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), of “murder-for-hire". During a press briefing on Thursday, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said he was no longer an employee of the Indian government.
According to the charges by the US, Yadav, who was not identified in the indictment filed in a federal court in Manhattan, recruited an Indian national named Nikhil Gupta to hire a hitman to assassinate Pannun, which was foiled by US authorities.
A look at four men involved in terror attacks against India who are or were in the US:
1. DAVID HEADLEY
Headley was a US-Pakistani national arrested on October 3, 2009 in the US for his role in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. He was sentenced to prison for 35 years. On December 10, 2015, Headley turned approver and was pardoned by a Mumbai court. On February 15, 2016, in a video deposition from the US, Headley made “disclosures and revelations" about the planning of 26/11 and his role in the same. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) accused Headley of filming potential targets in Mumbai prior to 26/11. Headley reportedly changed his name from Daood Gilani to escape suspicion after which he made five trips to Mumbai and filmed the landmarks that could be attacked by the terrorists. Headley is currently serving a 35-year sentence in the United States after pleading guilty to 12 international terrorism charges.
2. TAHAWWUR RANA
Pakistani-origin Canadian businessman Tahawwur Hussain Rana, wanted in India for his role in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that killed over 160, can be sent to India under the Indo-US extradition treaty, a court in California said earlier this year.
Rana, a Canadian businessman of Pakistani origin, is being sought in India for his alleged involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. India filed a complaint on June 10, 2020, seeking the provisional arrest of 62-year-old Rana, in order to facilitate his extradition process. “The Court has reviewed and considered all of the documents submitted in support of and in opposition to the Request, and has considered the arguments presented at the hearing," Judge Jacqueline Chooljian, a PTI report quoted US Magistrate Judge of the US District Court Central District of California, as saying in a 48-page court order dated May 16.
Rana was arrested in the US on an extradition request by India for his role in these attacks. During court hearings, US Government attorneys argued that Rana was aware that his childhood friend Pakistani-American David Coleman Headley was involved with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and that by assisting Headley and affording him cover for his activities, he was supporting the terrorist organization and its associates.
3. RABINDER SINGH
The US encouraged R&AW officer Rabinder Singh to defect to Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) after he came to the US on a government-funded trip in 2002. In 2004, Singh fell for the trap and defected to CIA via Nepal along with his wife. In 2006, R&AW had told a Delhi court that he had been traced to New Jersey and the agency was trying to extradite him.
How CIA hoodwinked R&AW Joint Secretary Rabinder Singh and took him to the US through Nepal is mentioned in a separate chapter in the book, ‘Mission R&AW’ by former RAW officer RK Yadav, which came out in May 2014. Singh continued fetching intelligence from fellow spies and sent it to his handler at CIA head office in Virginia, US, after his return from a foreign posting. His activities were monitored by the R&AW’s Counter Intelligence and Security Division (CIS) after he came under suspicion of being a mole for the CIA in December 2003.
After the CIS wired his office and Defence Colony house in January 2004, which showed that Singh was collecting evidence from different sources at the agency and passing it on to the CIA, he was allegedly tipped off and the CIA is said to have helped him escape.
The R&AW chief pressured the CIA, and its station chief in India was summoned. Although he feigned ignorance about the Singh episode, the R&AW shared evidence, including photocopies of fake passports, travel bills and imprints of some images that Singh wired information to the CIA using secure file transfer protocol. The forensic examination of his two laptops had revealed that Singh may have shipped over 20,000 files to the CIA. The American intelligence officials denied the allegations, according to Firstpost.
An investigation during that time revealed, nearly 57 R&AW officers were found to be sharing information with Singh regularly.
Singh died in a road accident in Maryland, US, in late 2016. He was faced with financial problems as the CIA stopped sending him money, and his attempts to get a job with a think tank were stonewalled.
4. GURPATWANT SINGH PANNUN
‘A victim, an Attorney and a political activist’ – this is how the US has described Khalistani terrorist Pannun in a long indictment document regarding a plot to allegedly assassinate him, going largely silent on his subversive activities from American soil against India like death threats to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“The victim (Pannun), is a vocal critic of the Government of India and leads a US-based organization that advocates for the secession of Punjab, a state in the northern part of India, that is home to a large population of Sikhs, an ethnoreligious minority group in India. The victim has publicly called for some or all of Punjab to secede from India and establish a Sikh sovereign state, called Khalistan, and the Government of India has banned the victim and his separatist organization from India," the indictment document has mentioned.
Pannun, a dual citizen of the United States and Canada, works as the general counsel of Sikhs for Justice. He was born in Khankot village on the outskirts of Amritsar and is the son of a former Punjab State Agricultural Marketing Board employee named Mahinder Singh. The pro-Khalistan lawyer has been a key organizer of nonbinding referendums that seek a separate Sikh state – held in countries with large Indian diasporas such as Canada, the UK and Australia.
Pannun is frequently spotted at pro-Khalistan functions and gatherings in Canada. He is known for his video messages shared on social media, often threatening Indian leaders and the government, mostly pictured in dark formalwear and white-bearded. Pannun is a US citizen who is misusing his access in the UK and Canada. He is responsible for acts of terrorism in multiple countries.
Earlier this year, Pannun allegedly threatened to kill Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and DGP Gaurav Yadav. He had recently offered cash reward for a “citizen’s arrest" of Indian High Commissioner Sanjay Verma. Announcing the ‘reward’, Pannun had accused Verma of falsely raising the bogey of terror threat to Air India to “divert attention" from the investigation into the killing of Nijjar.
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