US Newspaper Report Claims RAW Officer Involvement In Alleged Plot To Kill Khalistani Leader Pannun

American authorities have said that a RAW official was purportedly involved in a conspiracy to assassinate Khalistani leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun. (Image: X)

The report said that Vikram Yadav, who was on deputation from the CRPF, instructed a hit team to take out Pannun.

A report published by US newspaper Washington Post claimed that an officer of the foreign intelligence agency of India Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) instructed a hired hit team to kill US-based Khalistani separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.

The report says that RAW officer Vikram Yadav gave the instructions to the hit team to eliminate the legal counsel of Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) who is a prominent leader of the separatist movement. “US intelligence agencies have assessed that the operation targeting Pannun was approved by the RAW chief at the time, Samant Goel,” the report said.

The report also said that Yadav was transferred back to Central Reserve Police Forces (CRPF) following the unravelling of the Pannun plot. The government of India has not responded to these assertions made by the US newspaper.

American authorities have indicted Nikhil Gupta for the plot and said that he was acting at the behest of an Indian official who was named as CC-1 in the indictment. Gupta remains in a jail in Czechian capital Prague. He was detained last year by Czechian and American agencies.

The government is looking at the issue and had formed a high-level committee to investigate the matter in November based on the information shared by the US about the role of the Indian official. India said that it had a bearing on India’s security as well.

The report by the Washington Post claimed that Vikram Yadav was on deputation from CRPF and had allegedly forwarded details of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, including his address in New York. It also claimed that Yadav “lacked training and skills” needed for the operation that involved going head-to-head against sophisticated US counter-intelligence capabilities, the newspaper further claimed.

The report also said that senior US department of justice officials and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) would have implicated RAW in a murder-for-hire conspiracy. “But while a US indictment unsealed in November contained the bombshell allegation that the plot was directed by an Indian official, it referred to Yadav as only an unnamed co-conspirator, CC-1, and made no mention of the Indian spy agency,” the report said.

“Higher-ranking RAW officials have also been implicated, according to current and former Western security officials, as part of a sprawling investigation by the CIA, FBI and other agencies that has mapped potential links to Modi’s inner circle,” the report further added.