Karam Singh
October 18, 2024 | 4 min. read | Analysis
The United States Department of Justice recently announced another set of murder-for-hire and money laundering charges against Vikash Yadav, a 39-year-old Indian government employee in connection with the attempted assassination targeting New York resident Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a US citizen and prominent Sikh activist.
This case is a critical step in unraveling the disturbing pattern of India’s extraterritorial repression against Sikh political activists in the Western diaspora.
Vikesh Yadav was no ordinary intelligence officer. According to the unsealed indictment, Yadav was employed by the Cabinet Secretariat of India, where he provided sophisticated intelligence to co-conspirators, including Nikhil Gupta, who was extradited earlier this year.
The Cabinet Secretariat of India is home to India’s foreign intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). Within his role, Yadav described himself as a “senior field officer” with alleged responsibilities in security management and intelligence.
According to the indictment, Yadav recruited Nikhil Gupta and provided an array of information on Gurpatwant Pannun. The information provided included everything from the victim’s house address, phone numbers, to his day-to-day conduct. This monitoring of Pannun is consistent with allegations that Indian Consulates in the U.S. have set up vast spy networks in an effort to collect information on Sikh activists and their activities.
The indictment details candid conversations between Nikhil Gupta and Yadav, with Yadav discussing the logistics and price of the murders. Using encrypted messaging apps, Yadav relays to Nikhil Gupta that there are multiple targets including one in California. Gupta replies with “We will hit all our targets”.
In the seized communications, Yadav also assures Nikhil Gupta that his criminal case in Gujarat would be “taken care of”, suggesting that Yadav had serious backing for the operation.
Yadav’s involvement in the case suggests that the murder in Surrey and the unfoiled plot in New York were both part of a larger operation sanctioned by the upper-most offices in New Delhi.
Yadav’s ability to dismiss Nikhil Gupta’s case aligns with reports that the Prime Minister’s closest advisors such as Amit Shah could have potentially sanctioned the killings. The unfoiled plot gives insight into a sophisticated transnational repression program that has allegedly been operational in multiple countries.
According to a recent report by the Washington Post, Indian consulates illegally collected personal information on Sikh activists and provided information back to India. This information would subsequently be used for harassment, intimidation, and ultimately the murder of Sikh leaders.
A Global Pattern of State Repression
India’s actions mirror those of other authoritarian regimes like Saudi Arabia, Russia and China, which have crossed borders to eliminate their critics. The murder of Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, shocked the world. Russia’s poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in London, along with China’s persecution of Uighur dissidents, reveals a broader global pattern of repression.
The assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada last year and recent shooting of Sikh Activists in Sacramento are further evidence of India’s global strategy to terrorize and silence Sikh communities. For Sikh activists, these incidents are not merely breaches of protocol — they are acts of terror to instill fear in Sikh dissidents. They are calculated, designed to instill fear in entire communities, to remind sikh activists everywhere that they are not safe, even in countries that claim to safeguard their rights.
How will the U.S. Respond?
The US now faces a fundamental choice: will it allow foreign governments to carry out targeted political killings on American soil, or will it draw a hard line.
In past cases, the U.S. has acted with appropriate gravity when faced with foreign repression on its soil. After the Khashoggi murder, the U.S. imposed Global Magnitsky sanctions on Saudi officials involved, signaling that such atrocities would not be tolerated. In response to Russia’s targeted killings in Europe, the U.S. coordinated with its allies to issue sanctions, diplomatic expulsions, and condemnations. So why should India be treated any differently?
If such precedents are followed, the US government could demand Yadav’s immediate extradition, and further investigations would determine how high this terror chain of command goes. Given that the plot against Pannun unfolded just days before the Prime Minister’s high-profile visit to Washington, questions are raised about how much senior Indian officials knew about the assassination program.
India’s behavior represents more than an attack on the Sikh community – it is a direct challenge to international law and democratic principles. By targeting dissidents on foreign soil, India has joined the ranks of authoritarian states that use extrajudicial violence as a weapon against free speech and political expression.
The Guardian, Washington Post, and Al Jazeera have all reported extensively on these assassination plots, exposing the irrational and dangerous obsession India has with silencing its critics. For the global Sikh community, these attacks are not merely violations of international norms—they are existential threats.
A Test for U.S. Credibility
These actions come amidst a rapidly changing global order as human rights atrocities in Gaza test the limits of international diplomacy. Many scholars and journalists alike have pointed out the eroding credibility of the United States given their diplomatic cover for Israeli human rights abuses. Pannun’s case is a test for the U.S., does the international rules-based order extend to allies that the United States is attempting to court?
Many Sikhs hope that Yadav’s extradition is not the conclusion but a catalyst for a much larger reckoning. The Transnational Repression Reporting Act introduced earlier this month by Congressman Adam Schiff is the first of many necessary pieces of legislation.
If the U.S. fails to act decisively now, it risks turning itself into a playground for authoritarian regimes, where political murders are carried out with impunity and justice becomes a casualty. The future of human rights and international order demands nothing less than accountability—starting with Vikash Yadav, but not ending there.
Karam Singh is a writer and activist based in Northern California. He previously studied at UC Berkeley & San Jose State University. Karam’s research interests include refugee and displaced communities. He currently serves as a board member for Lehar International, an umbrella organization for Sikh students and activists.
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