The United States foiled a plot to assassinate a Sikh separatist on US soil and issued a warning to India’s government over concerns it was involved in the incident, it has been reported.
Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a US citizen and a leader of the breakaway Khalistan movement, was identified by the Financial Times (FT) as the target of the foiled plot.
It is unclear whether Washington’s complaint to New Delhi caused the would-be assassins to abort the plan, or whether the FBI intervened to prevent it.
The FT’s report comes two months after Canada caused a diplomatic rupture by linking the Indian government to the murder of a Sikh separatist leader on Canadian soil.
Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, said there was “credible” evidence to suggest New Delhi was involved in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, British Columbia in June.
India has rejected Canada’s accusations.
American spy agencies were involved in gathering the intelligence cited by Canada following Mr Nijjar’s murder, along with others in the Five Eyes alliance, of which the UK is a member.
It was after the incident in Canada that Washington shared details of the assassination plot involving Mr Pannun with its allies, as well as the FT, amid concerns that India could be plotting extrajudicial killings in a number of countries.
While the US has urged India to assist Canada’s investigation, it has avoided publicly criticising New Delhi over the case as it courts India to serve as a counterweight to an increasingly powerful China.
According to the FT, Washington’s private warning to New Delhi over the plot to assassinate one of its citizens came after Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, was fêted at a high-profile state visit to the US capital in June.
However, Joe Biden, the US president, was reported to have raised Mr Nijjar’s murder with Mr Modi at the G20 summit hosted by India in September.
It is unclear whether he also raised the plot to assassinate Mr Punnan at the same time.
Mr Punnan, like the late Mr Nijjar, is a prominent campaigner for the creation of an independent Sikh homeland called Khalistan in India’s northern state of Punjab.
The Khalistan campaign is strongly opposed by India, who has labelled activists involved as terrorists.
But calls for a breakaway homeland have intensified in recent years among the Sikh diaspora in Canada, the UK and elsewhere.
At least one of the alleged suspects in the US assassination plot has been indicted in a New York court, the FT reported.
The charges are currently under seal and the US Justice Department is reportedly weighing up whether or not to wait for Canada to conclude its investigation into Mr Nijjar’s murder before making it public.
One of the people named in the indictment is believed to have left the US already.
There was no immediate response from India’s foreign ministry, or from the US embassy in New Delhi, to requests for comment on the report.
India branded Canada’s claims it was potentially involved in Mr Nijjar’s murder “absurd”.
The dispute between the two nations has already led Canada to recall 41 of its diplomats from India.
‘Threat to an American citizen’
Mr Pannun, who also holds Canadian citizenship, is the general counsel of Sikhs for Justice, a US-based group advocating for an independent Sikh state.
He declined to say whether the FBI had alerted him to the plot to kill him when contacted by the FT.
But he said: “The threat to an American citizen on American soil is a challenge to America’s sovereignty, and I trust that the Biden administration is more than capable to handle any such challenge.”
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