Amid a diplomatic blowback between New Delhi and Ottawa over Canada suggesting the role of Indian diplomats in the Hardeep Singh Nijjar assassination case, the US has announced that the high-level Indian enquiry committee investigating a case related to the “failed plot” to kill another Khalistani separatist, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, is visiting the country on Tuesday. As per a statement from the US State Department, dated October 14, “The Enquiry Committee will be traveling to Washington DC on October 15, as part of their ongoing investigations to discuss the case, including information they have obtained, and to receive an update from US authorities regarding the US case that is proceeding.” The statement, which was put out on Monday and later retracted, has now been restored on the US State Department website. In November last year, within months of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alleging involvement of Indian officials in the Nijjar case, came allegations from the US about a thwarted Indian conspiracy to assassinate Pannun on American soil. Soon after, an unsealed indictment by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) had named Indian national Nikhil Gupta in connection with his involvement in the Pannun case. Gupta was extradited to the US in June. Prosecutors had alleged that Gupta was working with an Indian government employee and had agreed to pay an assassin $1,00,000 to kill Pannun in New York City. Pannun, a designated terrorist in India, is the leader of banned Khalistani separatist organisation Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) and holds dual citizenship in the US and Canada. While New Delhi had rejected Trudeau’s claims as “absurd and motivated”, on the US indictment, India said it takes such inputs “seriously” and these are “already being examined” by relevant departments. Soon after, the Ministry of External Affairs announced it had constituted a high-level inquiry committee to probe into “all the relevant aspects of the matter”. “An Indian Enquiry Committee that was established to investigate activities of certain organized criminals is actively investigating the individual who was identified last year in the Department of Justice’s indictment as an Indian government employee who directed a foiled plot to assassinate a US citizen in New York City,” it said. The State Department also said that India has informed the US they are continuing their efforts to investigate other linkages of the former government employee and will determine follow-up steps, as necessary. US President Joe Biden had brought up the case with Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he was in New Delhi for the G20 summit in September last year. Citing sources in the American government and US intelligence agencies, a Washington Post report in December 2023 named a RAW officer in connection with the alleged plot to assassinate Pannun in the US. The officer was named in the US DoJ indictment as ‘CC1’. The indictment suggested a link between the alleged plot targeting Pannun and the killing of Nijjar. Both the US and Canada are part of the Five Eyes Alliance, an intelligence-sharing grouping that also includes the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Reports said that the US, Canada and other allies shared details about the Nijjar killing and the alleged Pannun assassination plot, sparking concerns “about a possible pattern of behaviour” on Delhi’s part. Significantly, Canada has not shared any details of the evidence it has indicating that it will do so “in due course”. In an interview with Canada’s CTV last year, US Ambassador to Canada David Cohen had also said that it was “shared intelligence among Five Eyes partners” that helped “lead” Canada to the claims that PM Trudeau made. Speaking on the enquiry committee's visit, US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Tuesday: “The meeting was a follow-up on the conversations we have been having with the Government of India at the senior-most levels over the last few months. They have told us they are taking the allegations seriously and that the activities mentioned in the DOJ indictment do not represent government policy.” “When it comes to the Canadian matter, we have made clear that the allegations are extremely serious and they need to be taken seriously, and we wanted to see the Government of India cooperate with Canada in its investigation. Obviously, they have not chosen that path,” he said.
