America has charged a former Indian intelligence officer who allegedly directed a foiled plot to homicide a Sikh separatist in New York Metropolis final yr, with the FBI saying it could not tolerate retaliation towards a U.S. resident.
An indictment of Vikash Yadav was ordered to be unsealed on Thursday. The U.S. Justice Division indictment talked about Yadav as a former officer in India’s Analysis and Evaluation Wing spy service. It was filed within the U.S. District Court docket for the Southern District of New York.
Washington has alleged Indian brokers had been concerned in an tried assassination plot towards Sikh separatist chief Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a twin U.S.-Canadian citizen.
“The FBI won’t tolerate acts of violence or different efforts to retaliate towards these residing within the U.S. for exercising their constitutionally protected rights,” FBI director Christopher Wray stated in an announcement.
An Indian authorities committee investigating Indian involvement within the foiled homicide plot met with U.S. officers in Washington on Tuesday, a gathering that Washington described as productive.
America had been pushing India to look into the U.S. Justice Division’s declare that an Indian intelligence official directed plans to assassinate Pannun.
The U.S. case will not be the one occasion of India’s alleged focusing on of Sikh separatists on international soil.
Canada on Monday expelled Indian diplomats, linking them to the 2023 homicide of Sikh separatist chief Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil. India additionally ordered the expulsion of Canadian diplomats and denies Canada’s allegations.
The accusations have examined Washington and Ottawa’s relations with India, typically seen by the West as a counterbalance to China.
India has labelled Sikh separatists as “terrorists” and threats to its safety. Sikh separatists demand an impartial homeland often called Khalistan to be carved out of India. An insurgency in India in the course of the Eighties and Nineties killed tens of hundreds.
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