In a story straight from a B-grade Bollywood movie, the US this week alleged that an Indian government official was involved in a plot to assassinate Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York.
An Indian national, Nikhil Gupta, has now been arrested and charged with “murder for hire”. The US said that at the Indian government official’s direction, Gupta purportedly contracted a middleman and a hitman to “murder” Pannun, both of whom turned out to be undercover officers. Charges have now been filed against Gupta in court.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs called the allegations a “matter of concern” and “contrary to government policy”. The US’s charges come weeks after Canada in September said India was linked to the murder of Canada-based Khalistani activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Several newspaper editorials remarked on the seriousness of the charges.
The Hindu today, in an editorial headlined “A lot at stake”, said the 15-page indictment indicates American agents were investigating the matter since May, even as Modi and Biden had meetings.
“The allegations raise troubling questions about how much was shared between the two countries, and whether the Modi government, which had been outraged by similar allegations made by Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau, has been less than honest about what it knows,” the editorial said. “...It is India’s reputation as a consistent and credible power — one which has earned respect worldwide for its sagacity and principled approach on such issues in the past — that hangs in the balance...”
Deccan Herald also called it a “serious matter” in its editorial this morning. It said India may have “chosen more cautious words” while dismissing Canada’s claims “had it known of the volume of evidence that US investigators seem to have collected to substantiate their allegations”. “What is increasingly clear is that the world does not share the alleged Indian enthusiasm for cross-border killings,” it said.
While the matter “may not cause major damage to India’s broad-based ties with the US”, Deccan Herald added, it appears to have caused a “trust deficit” and also a “massive dent in the credibility of the Indian security establishment”.
Hindustan Times struck a slightly different note in its editorial dated November 30. It said India must “provide detailed information to the US and Canada on Pannun’s activities, which are nothing less than seditious and extremist when viewed in the context of Indian security interests”.
“The Khalistan movement created a fault line that is currently dormant but Pannun aims to make this come alive with the help of the diaspora. Washington and Ottawa should reflect if it is in their interest to allow American and Canadian soil to be used to whip up violence against a friendly, democratic nation,” the editorial said ominously.
Finally, Deccan Chronicle urged India to “come clean” in its editorial today.
“India would have to be at its convincing best to explain that the action contemplated was not officially sanctioned,” it said. “The New York indictment comes as an acute embarrassment for a country that may have protested loudly that it does not indulge in assassination of inconvenient people.”
No charges have been officially filed in Canada against specific persons involved in Nijjar’s murder, but that is not the case with the US, Deccan Chronicle pointed out. “To come clean on the subject and state its case lucidly on the tensions and threat created by breakaway forces would be in India’s best interests towards securing its strategic ties with the US and the West.”
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