Former Indian spy rejects US cost in Sikh separatist homicide plot, household says | EUROtoday

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A former Indian intelligence officer charged with directing a foiled assassination plot in opposition to a Sikh separatist chief in New York final 12 months rejects the accusations, his household mentioned.

Vikash Yadav, a former officer in India’s international intelligence service who was named by federal prosecutors for the primary time in an unsealed indictment on Thursday, is charged with cash laundering, conspiracy, and main a murder-for-hire scheme.

According to the indictment, Mr Yadav was an officer within the Research and Analysis Wing, which is instantly overseen by the Prime Minister’s Office.

India says it’s investigating the allegations. It additionally claims that Mr Yadav is not a authorities worker, however gained’t verify if he has ever been an intelligence officer.

Mr Yadav’s cousin Avinash Yadav spoke to Reuters on Saturday at their ancestral village, Pranpura, some 100km from the capital New Delhi.

He mentioned he had mentioned the homicide plot allegations with Mr Yadav, who described them as false media experiences.

Avinash mentioned he spoke to his cousin repeatedly however Mr Yadav had by no means mentioned something about being an intelligence officer.

“The family has no information. He never mentioned anything about it,” he mentioned, referring to Mr Yadav’s supposed employment with the spy service.

“For us he is still working for the CRPF. He told us he is deputy commandant.” The CRPF is the Central Reserve Police Force, a federal paramilitary that Mr Yadav joined in 2009.

The cousin mentioned he didn’t know Mr Yadav’s whereabouts, solely that he lived along with his spouse and a daughter who was born final 12 months.

Mr Yadav and his alleged co-conspirator, Nikhil Gupta, are accused of plotting the homicide of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a American and Canadian citizen who based Sikhs for Justice which advocates for the creation of an unbiased Sikh homeland referred to as Khalistan in northwestern India.

The organisation is banned in India, which has designated Mr Pannun a “terrorist”.

Mr Gupta, who was extradited to the US from the Czech Republic earlier this 12 months, is lodged in a Brooklyn jail. He has pleaded not responsible.

Mr Yadav was arrested in New Delhi on 18 December final 12 months, a police officer instructed Reuters on situation of anonymity. He and an affiliate have been charged with tried homicide, in line with a submitting in a Delhi district court docket.

Mr Yadav’s lawyer, RK Hindoo, mentioned the costs introduced in opposition to his shopper by Delhi police have been “fallacious” and that there was “an international plot to bring shame on the government of India and my client”.

It will not be recognized the place Mr Yadav is now. The Washington Postciting American officers, reported that he was nonetheless in India and that the US would search his extradition.

“He has been working for the country,” Mr Yadav’s mom Sudesh Yadav mentioned.

The indictment in opposition to Mr Yadav is a “grave example of the increase in lethal plotting and other forms of violent transnational repression targeting diaspora communities in the United States,” assistant lawyer basic Matthew Olsen of the US Justice Department mentioned in a press release.

The accusations in opposition to Mr Yadav and Mr Gupta that seemingly implicate the Indian authorities observe comparable fees made by Canada over the assassination of a Sikh separatist chief in June 2023.

India rejects the “preposterous imputations” made by Canadian authorities and decries it a political agenda of the Justin Trudeau authorities.

Canada has expelled six Indian diplomats, together with excessive commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma, “in relation to a targeted campaign against Canadian citizens by agents linked to the Government of India”.

New Delhi has retaliated by ordering the expulsion of six Canadian diplomats, together with appearing excessive commissioner Stewart Ross Wheeler.