It was described as a New York hit job with international implications: an audacious assassination plot against a Sikh separatist.
The target was a lawyer at a New York-based group called Sikhs for Justice — an American citizen and an outspoken proponent of independence for the northern Indian state of Punjab. And the man who would attempt to arrange his murder, prosecutors said, was an Indian national who had been hired by an official inside the Indian government.
But the plot failed: The man planning the assassination hired a hit man who was, in fact, working for the American government.
The scheme burst into public view on Wednesday, when federal prosecutors in Manhattan announced that they had charged the Indian national, Nikhil Gupta, with murder for hire and conspiracy to commit murder for hire. The allegations could complicate the delicate relations among Washington, Ottawa and New Delhi.
The plot, prosecutors indicated in court documents, was no empty threat. It was linked to the June killing of another Sikh separatist in Canada, and they said that the Indian government official who orchestrated the attempted assassination told Mr. Gupta that there was another target in California.
The indictment included a photo of a roll of hundred-dollar bills that prosecutors said was an advance payment for the New York job. “We have so many targets,” Mr. Gupta told the federal agent he had unwittingly hired to do the killing, the indictment said.
The target of the New York plot was identified by American officials as Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who is general counsel for Sikhs for Justice, which supports the secession of Punjab from India.
Reached by phone on Wednesday night, Mr. Pannun said he viewed the indictment of Mr. Gupta as “an indictment of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”
“The conspiracy and plot to kill me,” he said, “comes from the government of India.”
The affair is likely to complicate a key component of President Biden’s foreign policy agenda. Despite growing concerns about India’s commitment to democracy, Mr. Biden has been courting the country’s leaders to counter the influence of Russia and China.
The result has been expanded defense and trade ties and visits to India by American officials. But the allegations that the government of India, the world’s most populous nation, played a role in the killing of one of its critics on Canadian soil and was plotting to do the same in the United States may undermine any notions of India’s reliability as an ally.
Just months ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada accused the Indian government of involvement in the June killing of another Sikh separatist, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in Surrey, British Columbia. American intelligence agencies provided information to the Canadian government about that killing. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which is conducting the investigation in British Columbia, has offered no information about its progress on the case.
In recent days, before the indictment became public, American officials privately expressed concerns to the Indian government about the planned New York assassination. Wednesday’s announcement of the charges against Mr. Gupta, 52, in the Southern District of New York made the accusation of New Delhi’s involvement public. It was not immediately clear on Wednesday who was representing Mr. Gupta, who was arrested in June in the Czech Republic, or where he was being held.
The goal of Sikh separatists is the creation of a sovereign state known as Khalistan.In a region wrought both by colonial emancipation and external forces, the demand has long been associated with violence, but support for it has faded in recent decades, and the issue is primarily of interest in the Sikh diaspora now.
“India believes in using bullets, while pro-Khalistan Sikhs believe in ballots,” Mr. Pannun wrote in an email.
Mr. Gupta, who lived in India, had told the Indian government official about “his involvement in international narcotics and weapons trafficking,” according to the indictment. Those criminal bona fides apparently led Mr. Gupta to contact an individual whom he believed to be a hit man but who “was in fact an undercover U.S. law enforcement officer,” according to the indictment.
Money was soon in play: $100,000 promised “to murder the victim,” according to the indictment, including a payment of $15,000 in cash as an advance, according to prosecutors.
Mr. Gupta, prosecutors say, then hired the supposed hit man to kill Mr. Pannun and provided personal information about him, including his home address in New York City and details about his daily activities.
The agent asked for updates, and Mr. Gupta responded with surveillance photographs of Mr. Pannun that the undercover agent had sent him. In June, Mr. Gupta also ordered the supposed hit man not to kill Mr. Pannun around the time of high-level meetings between U.S. and Indian officials. Prime Minister Modi visited Washington and met with Mr. Biden that month.
While Sikh separatists committed violent acts in India in the 1980s, Mr. Pannun, like Mr. Nijjar, was not involved in any terror activities and was pursuing an independent state through democratic means, according to U.S. officials briefed on the matter.
The Department of Justice indictment shows connections between the plots against both men. Mr. Nijjar knew Mr. Pannun. Shortly after Mr. Nijjar was murdered, the Indian government agent sent Mr. Gupta a video clip of “Nijjar’s bloody body slumped in his vehicle,” according to the indictment.
Shortly after, prosecutors said, that agent sent Mr. Gupta Mr. Pannun’s address. Prosecutors said Mr. Gupta told the supposed hit man that there was “no need to wait” to kill Mr. Pannun.
After the killing in British Columbia, F.B.I. agents warned Sikh leaders around the United States about potential threats.
After the Biden administration learned that Mr. Gupta had “credibly indicated” that he had conspired with an employee of the Indian government, the White House engaged “in direct conversations with the Indian government at the highest levels to express our concern,” Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said Wednesday.
“The government of India was clear with us that they were taking this seriously and would investigate,” Ms. Watson said in a statement. “We are providing information to the government of India to aid in their internal investigation. We will continue to expect accountability.”
Mr. Biden directed William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, to visit India in August to discuss the suspected assassination plot and press the Indian government to hold those involved responsible, according to U.S. officials familiar with the events. Mr. Biden himself raised the New York plot directly with Mr. Modi when they met at the Group of 20 summit in September.
In a statement posted to the website of the Indian government’s Ministry of External Affairs, a spokesman, Arindam Bagchi, said that “during the course of discussions with the U.S. on bilateral security cooperation, the U.S. side shared some inputs pertaining to nexus between organized criminals, gun runners, terrorists and others.”
Mr. Bagchi added that the India government had empaneled a “high-level” committee “to look into all the relevant aspects of the matter.”
On his way into the House of Commons on Wednesday, Mr. Trudeau said that Canadian officials had been working with their American counterparts for some time.
“The news coming out of the United States further underscores what we have been saying for months,” he told reporters.
Mujib Mashal and Vjosa Isai contributed reporting. Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
