Senior-level officials of India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) approved the alleged plot to murder a Sikh separatist leader and an American national, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, on United States soil, the Washington Post reported in an exclusive story.
According to the American publication’s report, an “officer in India’s intelligence service was relaying final instructions to a hired hit team to kill” one of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “most vocal critics”, as he enjoyed a dinner at the White House in June last year.
The RAW officer, identified as Vikram Yadav, was spearheading the assassination bid following approval of the agency’s then-chief Samant Goel.
Pannun, the general counsel of Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) and a pro-Khalistan Sikh leader, is one of the high-profile leaders in the community and has remained at risk of being eliminated, particularly in the wake of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s killing June 18, 2023.
However, the foiled plot of his lethal assassination — meticulously planned by India — has “stunned Western security officials”, the Washington Post stated.
“Yadav’s identity and affiliation, which have not previously been reported, provide the most explicit evidence to date that the assassination plan — ultimately thwarted by US authorities — was directed from within the Indian spy service,” the publication wrote.
As per current and former Western security officials, senior RAW officials have also been “implicated”, following a stretched-out probe into the matter by the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies, which has charted links of the plot to the Indian premier’s “inner circle”.
The US publication, owned by American tech tycoon Jeff Bezos, revealed it is probing a “global surge in such campaigns of cross-border repression, as well as the global forces leading India and other nations to employ tactics normally associated with the world’s most repressive governments.”
