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Indian national accused in $100K murder-for-hire plot against NYC-based leader of Sikh separatist movement

Gurpatwant Singh Pannun speaks, Sept. 26, 2014 in New York. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle, File)
Gurpatwant Singh Pannun speaks, Sept. 26, 2014 in New York. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle, File)
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An Indian national was hit with murder-for-hire and conspiracy charges in Manhattan on Wednesday for his alleged role in a $100,000 plot to kill a New York City-based leader of the Sikh separatist movement.

Nikhil “Nick” Gupta, who the feds say is involved in drugs and weapons trafficking, is accused of working to carry out the orders of an unnamed Indian government official who sought to cut down Gurpatwant Singh Pannun because of his criticism of India’s leadership.

Pannun, an immigration attorney and political activist based in the city, is banned from his native country, as is his organization. He has advocated for the largely Sikh population in the northern state of Punjab to secede from India and establish a sovereign state.

Attorney Gurpatwant Pannun from lawyers for rights group the American Justice Center (AJC) answers a question during a press conference in New York on September 26, 2014. A New York court has ordered Narendra Modi to answer allegations of "attempted genocide" over deadly anti-Muslim riots, AJC said on September 26, as he began his first US visit as India's prime minister. The complaint relates to anti-Muslim violence that left at least 1,000 people dead in 2002 in the western Indian state of Gujarat, where Modi served as chief minister before he was elected prime minister in May. AFP PHOTO/Jewel Samad (Photo credit should read JEWEL SAMAD/AFP via Getty Images)
Gurpatwant Singh Pannun speaks during his day job as a lawyer during a press conference in New York on Sept. 26, 2014. (JEWEL SAMAD/AFP via Getty Images)

The government official — referred to in court documents as an unnamed co-conspirator — allegedly recruited Gupta to carry out the hit via India in May, in exchange for getting rid of criminal charges he faced. Prosecutors say the official previously worked for India’s Central Reserve Police Force and in various national security and intelligence capacities.

“As alleged, the defendant conspired from India to assassinate, right here in New York City, a U.S. citizen of Indian origin who has publicly advocated for the establishment of a sovereign state for Sikhs, an ethnoreligious minority group in India,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said. “We will not tolerate efforts to assassinate U.S. citizens on U.S. soil.”

After getting his assignment, discussed on the phone and in person in New Delhi, the 52-year-old Gupta reached out to a “criminal associate” he didn’t realize was an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, court documents allege. They then put him in touch with a supposed hit man — also undercover for the DEA.

Gupta is accused of brokering a deal between the official and the supposed hit man to take out Pannun for $100,000 and having an associate deliver an advance payment of $15,000 in Manhattan in June.

Nikhil “Nick” Gupta is accused of brokering a deal between the official and the supposed hitman to take out Pannun for $100,000 and having an associate deliver an advance payment of $15,000 in Manhattan in June. An image of the advance payment is pictured here. (Courtesy of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams’ Office)Gupta is described in Wednesday’s indictment as acting as a go-between, passing surveillance from the government official to the undercover showing Pannun’s day-to-day activities and directing him to carry out the killing quickly — but not when high-level meetings between U.S. and Indian officials were scheduled to occur.

Hours after another Sikh separatist leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, was murdered by masked gunmen outside a Sikh temple in British Columbia on June 18, the government official sent Gupta a video of a slain Nijjar, according to the indictment. Shortly after, he sent Gupta Pannun’s address.

In response, Gupta allegedly told the official he wished he had carried out Nijjar’s murder himself, expressing his desire to “go to the field.”

The next day, Gupta contacted the undercover to tell him that, like Pannun, Nijjar had also been on the hit list and that “we have so many targets,” authorities said. 

“If he is not alone, [if] there are two guys with him in the meeting or something . . . put everyone down,” Gupta was quoted in another exchange with the purported hit man.

The feds intervened about a week later. Gupta was arrested June 30 when he arrived in the Czech Republic, which has an extradition treaty with the U.S.

Members of United Hindu Front organisation shout slogans as they hold banners depicting Justin Trudeau Canada's Prime Minister (L) and Gurpatwant Singh Pannun (C) a lawyer believed to be based in Canada designated as a Khalistani terrorist by the Indian authorities during a rally along a street in New Delhi on September 24, 2023. In an interview with an Indian news channel, Pannun said Nijjar had been his "close associate" for over 20 years and was like a "younger brother" to him. He also blamed India for Nijjar's killing. A diplomatic firestorm erupted this week with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau saying there were "credible reasons to believe that agents of the government of India were involved" in Nijjar's death. (Photo by Arun SANKAR / AFP) (Photo by ARUN SANKAR/AFP via Getty Images)
Hindu demonstrators hold banners depicting Justin Trudeau (L), and Gurpatwant Singh Pannun (C) during a rally along a street in New Delhi on Sept. 24, 2023. (Photo by ARUN SANKAR/AFP via Getty Images)

Gupta now faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire. It’s not clear when he’ll appear in court stateside. The News could not identify a lawyer to request comment.

The Indian government has not acknowledged any plot to kill Pannun and has denied involvement in Nijjar’s murder. 

In September, however, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his country’s investigators had found “credible evidence” that Indian officials ordered the killing of Nijjar.