A man from India pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to conspiring to hire a hitman to assassinate Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a prominent Sikh separatist leader living in New York City, according to prosecutors. Prosecutors said Nikhil Gupta coordinated with an Indian government employee and that Gupta’s efforts unfolded after he was extradited to the United States and faced charges in the case.
U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said the government’s message to foreign actors should be clear after Gupta pleaded guilty to three conspiracy charges. Clayton said, in a statement issued following the plea, that the warning is for “our message to nefarious foreign actors,” telling them to “steer clear of the United States and our people.” In the federal case, prosecutors also tied the plot to what they described as an attempt to silence Pannun, who is an American citizen and advocates Sikh separatism.
James C. Barnacle Jr., who heads the FBI’s New York office, said Gupta coordinated with an Indian government employee who directed him to carry out the killing. Barnacle said the conduct involved “facilitating a foreign adversary’s unlawful effort to silence a vocal critic of the Indian government,” describing it as part of a broader scheme that went beyond an isolated approach for a contract killing.
According to court proceedings, Gupta told U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn that he was in India when he paid $15,000 online in 2023 to someone he believed could carry out the assassination of Pannun. Prosecutors said Gupta was unwittingly communicating with an undercover law enforcement officer posing as a hitman, setting up the guilty plea for conduct prosecutors said was designed to be carried out on U.S. soil.
The courtroom for the plea included about two dozen Sikhs from across the United States and Canada, the AP reported, and they shared Pannun’s goal of winning independence for Punjab, a state in northwest India. After the proceeding ended, some of them chanted a victory slogan and held a prayer service outside the courthouse, waving yellow flags with “Khalistan” printed in blue and also carrying American flags, according to the report.
Gupta has been held without bail since he was extradited to the United States in June 2023 from the Czech Republic, where he was arrested in Prague, prosecutors said. A plea agreement called for him to serve at least two decades in prison, and sentencing was scheduled for May 29, according to court filings described by the AP.
Prosecutors also described details of Gupta’s conversations with the undercover officer. The government said Gupta suggested that the June 2023 killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar outside a Sikh temple in British Columbia, Canada, was the work of the same individuals involved in the assassination plot against Pannun, and Gupta told the undercover officer that Nijjar “was also the target” and that “we have so many targets,” according to court papers. Prosecutors said Gupta instructed the undercover officer to proceed with Pannun’s killing after Nijjar was dead, describing the statements in the case record.
After the plea, Pannun told the AP in a phone interview that he planned to continue his activism “even if I have to face a bullet.” In his remarks to the AP, Pannun said he was “not a terrorist” and described himself as a Sikh and human rights lawyer campaigning for Punjab to become a place where “all religions will have equal rights.” He also urged the U.S. to pursue officials in India who, he said, directed Gupta.