In one more startling declare made by a US-based media, the information outlet reported that the Joe Biden administration despatched two prime intelligence officers to India to press for a probe into an alleged plot to assassinate a Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on American soil. Earlier final week, The Monetary Occasions had reported citing US officers that America foiled India’s alleged plan to kill Pannun.
The report got here on a day when India mentioned that it had constituted a high-level enquiry committee to probe the allegations. Now, The Washington Submit reported that US authorities prosecutors shall be submitting a superseding indictment in opposition to an Indian nationwide, Nikhil Gupta, relating to a murder-for-hire plot focusing on Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.
The report claimed that the difficulty was raised by prime US management together with President Biden and CIA Director William J Burns with India demanding New Delhi to carry these accountable for it. The report claimed that the Drug Enforcement Administration of the US foiled the plot in June this yr. In the identical month, one other Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot useless in Canada by unknown assailants.
The US believed that an Indian official was additionally a part of the conspiracy to kill Pannun. “The invention of a plot to assassinate a Sikh separatist on US soil earlier this yr so involved the Biden administration that it dispatched its prime two intelligence officers to New Delhi to demand the Indian authorities examine and maintain to account these accountable,” the report quoted a senior US official.
The US prosecutors claimed that Gupta coordinated a USD15,000 advance fee to a hitman’s affiliate to kill Pannun.
Exterior Affairs Ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi in the present day mentioned the US aspect shared some ‘inputs’ pertaining to the nexus between organised criminals, gun runners and terrorists and that India takes such inputs severely since they impinge on ‘our nationwide safety pursuits as effectively’ and that related departments had been analyzing the difficulty. (With PTI inputs)
