#Yadav indictment

[todayworldnews2k21]

Yadav's indictment US signal to China, Russia - Times of India

TOI Correspondent from Washington: The statement accompanying the indictment filed by US department of justice against former RAW operative Vikash Yadav in connection with the alleged plot to assassinate pro-Khalistan extremist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York also suggested Washington is making an example of the episode to broadcast a larger message to other nations, notably China and Russia,…

[jasminewilson143]

U.S. Charges Indian National in Foiled Assassination Plot Against Sikh Activist: A Diplomatic Crisis Unfolds

U.S. Charges Indian National in Foiled Assassination Plot Against Sikh Activist: A Diplomatic Crisis Unfolds The recent indictment of an Indian national by the United States has set off a diplomatic storm, raising serious questions about international law, intelligence activities, and the lengths nations might go to silence political dissidents. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern…

[andmaybegayer]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/29/india-assassination-raw-sikhs-modi/

cool cool cool

(full text below the cut)

An assassination plot on American soil reveals a darker side of Modi’s India

Greg Miller, Gerry Shih, Ellen Nakashima

The White House went to extraordinary lengths last year to welcome Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a state visit meant to bolster ties with an ascendant power and potential partner against China.

Tables on the South Lawn were decorated with lotus blooms, the symbol of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. A chef was flown in from California to preside over a vegetarian menu. President Biden extolled the shared values of a relationship “built on mutual trust, candor and respect.”

But even as the Indian leader was basking in U.S. adulation on June 22, an officer in India’s intelligence service was relaying final instructions to a hired hit team to kill one of Modi’s most vocal critics in the United States.

The assassination is a “priority now,” wrote Vikram Yadav, an officer in India’s spy agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, or RAW, according to current and former U.S. and Indian security officials.

Yadav forwarded details about the target, Sikh activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, including his New York address, according to the officials and a U.S. indictment. As soon as the would-be assassins could confirm that Pannun, a U.S. citizen, was home, “it will be a go ahead from us.”

Yadav’s identity and affiliation, which have not previously been reported, provide the most explicit evidence to date that the assassination plan — ultimately thwarted by U.S. authorities — was directed from within the Indian spy service. 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.

In reports that have been closely held within the American government, U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that the operation targeting Pannun was approved by the RAW chief at the time, Samant Goel. That finding is consistent with accounts provided to The Washington Post by former senior Indian security officials who had knowledge of the operation and said Goel was under extreme pressure to eliminate the alleged threat of Sikh extremists overseas. U.S. spy agencies have more tentatively assessed that Modi’s national security adviser, Ajit Doval, was probably aware of RAW’s plans to kill Sikh activists, but officials emphasized that no smoking gun proof has emerged.

Neither Doval nor Goel responded to calls and text messages seeking comment.

This examination of Indian assassination plots in North America, and RAW’s increasingly aggressive global posture, is based on interviews with more than three dozen current and former senior officials in the United States, India, Canada, Britain, Germany and Australia. Citing security concerns and the sensitivity of the subject, most spoke on the condition of anonymity.

That India would pursue lethal operations in North America has stunned Western security officials. In some ways, however, it reflects a profound shift in geopolitics. After years of being treated as a second-tier player, India sees itself as a rising force in a new era of global competition, one that even the United States cannot afford to alienate.

Asked why India would risk attempting an assassination on U.S. soil, a Western security official said: “Because they knew they could get away with it.”

The foiled assassination was part of an escalating campaign of aggression by RAW against the Indian diaspora in Asia, Europe and North America, officials said. The plot in the United States coincided with the June 18 shooting death of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C., near Vancouver — an operation also linked to Yadav, according to Western officials. Both plots took place amid a wave of violence in Pakistan, where at least 11 Sikh or Kashmiri separatists living in exile and labeled terrorists by the Modi government have been killed over the past two years.

The Indian intelligence service has ramped up its surveillance and harassment of Sikhs and other groups overseas perceived as disloyal to the Modi government, officials said. RAW officers and agents have faced arrest, expulsion and reprimand in countries including Australia, Germany and Britain, according to officials who provided details to The Post that have not previously been made public.

The revelations have added to Western concerns about Modi, whose tenure has been marked by economic growth and rising global stature for India, but also deepening authoritarianism. A recent report by Freedom House, a human rights organization, listed India among the world’s practitioners of “transnational repression,” a term for governments’ use of intimidation or violence against their own citizens — dissidents, activists, journalists — in others’ sovereign territory.

India is part of an expanding roster of countries employing tactics previously associated with China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other repressive regimes. It is a trend fueled by factors ranging from surging strains of nationalism and authoritarianism to the spread of social media and spyware that both empower and endanger dissident groups.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs declined to respond to detailed questions submitted by The Post or provide comment for this article. Responding to questions raised by a Post reporter at a news briefing last week, spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said that India was still investigating the allegations and that the Pannun case “equally impacts our national security.”

Jaiswal referred reporters to previous ministry statements that targeted killings are “not our policy.”

For the Biden administration, which has spent three years cultivating closer ties with India, the assassination plots have pitted professed values against strategic interests.

Last July, White House officials began holding high-level meetings to discuss ways to respond without risking a wider rupture with India, officials said. CIA Director William J. Burns and others have been deployed to confront officials in the Modi government and demand accountability. But the United States has so far imposed no expulsions, sanctions or other penalties.

Even the U.S. criminal case reflects this restraint. Senior officials at the Justice Department and FBI had pushed to prosecute Yadav, officials said, a step that would have implicated RAW in a murder-for-hire conspiracy. But while a U.S. 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.

Justice Department officials who took part in the White House deliberations sided against those urging criminal charges against Yadav. Administration officials denied any undue influence. “Charging decisions are the prerogative of law enforcement alone,” said National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson, “and the Biden NSC has rigorously respected that independence.”

The only U.S. charges made public to date are against an alleged middleman, Nikhil Gupta, who is described in the indictment as an Indian drug and weapons trafficker enlisted to hire a contract killer. Gupta, an Indian national who has denied the charges, was arrested in Prague on June 30 and remains in prison. He is awaiting a Czech court ruling on a U.S. request for his extradition.

Even in recent days, the Biden administration has taken steps to contain the fallout from the assassination plot. White House officials warned the Modi government this month that The Post was close to publishing an investigation that would reveal new details about the case. It did so without notifying The Post.

Laying a trap

For decades, RAW was regarded as a regional player, preoccupied by proxy wars with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency. Under Modi, however, RAW has been wielded as a weapon against dissidents in India’s vast global diaspora, according to current and former U.S. and Indian officials.

The U.S. operation shows how RAW tried to export tactics it has used for years in countries neighboring India, officials said, including the use of criminal syndicates for operations it doesn’t want traced to New Delhi. It also exposed what former Indian security officials described as disturbing lapses in judgment and tradecraft.

After the plot against Pannun failed, the decision to entrust Yadav with the high-risk mission sparked recriminations within the agency, former officials said. Rather than joining RAW as a junior officer, Yadav had been brought in midcareer from India’s less prestigious Central Reserve Police Force, said one former official. As a result, the official said, Yadav lacked training and skills needed for an operation that meant going up against sophisticated U.S. counterintelligence capabilities.

Attempts by The Post to locate or contact Yadav were unsuccessful. A former Indian security official said he was transferred back to the Central Reserve Police Force after the Pannun plot unraveled.

The U.S. affidavit describes Yadav as an “associate” of Gupta who procured the alleged drug trafficker’s help by arranging for the dismissal of criminal charges he faced in India. Gupta had a history of collaborating with India’s security services on operations in Afghanistan and other countries, according to a person with knowledge of his background, but he had never been used for jobs in the West.

Petr Slepicka, a lawyer in Prague who represents Gupta, declined to comment on the case except to say that his client denies the charges against him. In court filings in India, Gupta’s family members described him as an innocent “middle-class businessman” whose arrest was a case of mistaken identity. They said he traveled to Prague “for tourism” and to explore new markets for a “handicraft” business, according to the court filings.

Yadav and Gupta spent weeks trading encrypted texts about the plot to kill Pannun, according to a U.S. affidavit filed in support of the request for Gupta’s extradition. To find a willing assassin, Gupta reached out to someone he had been in touch with for at least eight years and understood to be a drug and weapons dealer. In reality, according to the affidavit, the supposed dealer was an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

The two were discussing “another potential firearms and narcotics transaction,” according to the affidavit when, on May 30, Gupta abruptly asked “about the possibility of hiring someone to murder a lawyer living in New York.”

From that moment, U.S. agents had an inside but incomplete view of the unfolding conspiracy. They orchestrated Gupta’s introduction to a supposed assassin who was actually an undercover agent, according to court filings. They captured images of cash changing hands in a car in New York City — a $15,000 down payment on a job that was to cost $100,000 when completed.

At one point, the indictment said, U.S. agents even got footage of Gupta turning his camera toward three men “dressed in business attire, sitting around a conference room,” an apparent reference to Indian operatives overseeing the mission. “We are all counting on you,” Gupta told the purported assassin on the video call, according to the indictment.

Yadav indicated that there would be more jobs after Pannun, including one “big target” in Canada. But a separate hit team got to that assignment first, according to the U.S. indictment, suggesting that RAW was working with multiple criminal elements.

Hours after Nijjar was gunned down in his car on June 18 outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara temple in Surrey, Yadav sent a video clip to Gupta “showing Nijjar’s bloody body slumped in his vehicle,” according to the indictment.

The message arrived as U.S. authorities were laying a trap for Gupta. Seeking to draw him out of India and into a friendly jurisdiction, U.S. agents used their DEA informant to persuade Gupta to travel to the Czech Republic for what he was led to believe would be a clandestine meeting with his American contact, according to officials familiar with the operation.

Gupta arrived in Prague on June 30 — 11 days after Czech authorities, acting at the behest of U.S. officials, had secretly issued an arrest warrant for him.

As he exited Vaclav Havel Airport, Gupta was intercepted by Czech police, who ushered him into a vehicle in which two U.S. federal agents were waiting, according to court filings submitted by Gupta’s family in India. He was questioned for hours while the car meandered around the city. His laptop was seized and his phone held to his face to unlock it, according to the family petition.

Gupta was eventually deposited in Prague’s Pankrac Prison, where he remains awaiting possible extradition. Seeking help, Gupta’s family tried to reach Yadav last year but could find no trace of him, according to a person familiar with the matter. After months of near-constant contact with Gupta, the person said, CC-1 had “disappeared.”

Engaging with the underworld

Though Yadav served as RAW’s point man, current and former officials said the operation involved higher-ranking officials with ties to Modi’s inner circle. Among those suspected of involvement or awareness are Goel and Doval, though U.S. officials said there is no direct evidence so far of their complicity.

As RAW chief at the time, Goel was “under pressure” to neutralize the alleged threat posed by Sikh extremists overseas, said a former Indian security official. Goel reported to Doval, and had ties to the hard-line national security adviser going back decades.

Both had built their reputations in the 1980s, when the country’s security services battled Sikh separatists and Muslim militants. They were part of a generation of security professionals shaped by those conflicts much the way their U.S. counterparts came to be defined by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Doval, 79, has claimed roles in undercover missions from the jungles of Myanmar to the back alleys of Lahore, Pakistan — tales that contributed to his frequent depiction in the press as the “James Bond of India.”

He also exhibited a willingness to engage with the criminal underworld. In 2005, after retiring as head of India’s domestic intelligence service, he was inadvertently detained by Mumbai police while meeting with a reputed gangster. Doval was seeking to enlist one crime boss to assassinate another, according to media reports later confirmed by senior Indian officials.

Before being tapped as national security adviser by Modi in 2014, Doval publicly called for India’s security apparatus to shift from “defense” to “defensive offense” against groups threatening India from other countries, especially Pakistan.

Goel, who was then rising into the senior ranks at RAW, shared Doval’s instincts. Police forces under Goel’s command in the early 1990s were tied to more than 120 cases of alleged extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances or torture, according to a database maintained by Ensaaf, an Indian human rights group based in the United States. Goel was so closely associated with the brutal crackdown that he became an assassination target, according to associates who said he took to traveling in a bulletproof vehicle.

Former Indian officials who know both men said Goel would not have proceeded with assassination plots in North America without the approval of his superior and protector.

“We always had to go to the NSA for clearance for any operations,” said A.S. Dulat, who served as RAW chief in the early 2000s, referring to the national security adviser. Dulat emphasized in an interview with The Post that he did not have inside knowledge of the alleged operations, and that assassinations were not part of RAW’s repertoire during his tenure.

U.S. intelligence agencies have reached a similar conclusion. Given Doval’s reputation and the hierarchical nature of the Indian system, CIA analysts have assessed that Doval probably knew of or approved RAW’s plans to kill Sikhs his government considered terrorists, U.S. officials said.

A fierce crackdown

India’s shift to “defensive offense” was followed by a series of clashes between RAW and Western domestic security services.

In Australia, two RAW officers were expelled in 2020 after authorities broke up what Mike Burgess, head of the Australian intelligence service, described as a “nest of spies.”

Foreign officers were caught monitoring “their country’s diaspora community,” trying to penetrate local police departments and stealing information about sensitive security systems at Australian airports, Burgess said in a 2021 speech. He didn’t name the service, but Australian officials confirmed to The Post that it was RAW.

In Germany, federal police have made arrests in recent years to root out agents RAW had recruited within Sikh communities. Among them, German officials said, were a husband and wife who operated a website purportedly covering local Sikh events but who were secretly on RAW’s payroll.

In Britain, RAW’s surveillance and harassment of the Sikh population — especially a large concentration near Birmingham — became so egregious in 2014 and 2015 that MI5, Britain’s domestic security service, delivered warnings to Goel, who was then serving as RAW’s station chief in London.

When confronted, Goel scoffed at his counterparts and accused them of coddling Sikh activists he said should be considered terrorists, according to current and former British officials. After further run-ins, British authorities threatened to expel him, officials said. Instead, Goel returned to New Delhi and continued to climb RAW’s ranks until, in 2019, he was given the agency’s top job.

RAW’s record of aggressive activity in Britain has fanned suspicion that the agency was involved in the death of Sikh activist Avtar Singh Khanda, who died in Birmingham last year, three days before Nijjar was killed in Canada. British officials have said Khanda suffered from leukemia and died of natural causes, though his family and supporters have continued to press for further investigation.

A U.S. State Department human rights report released this month catalogued India’s alleged engagement in transnational repression. It cited credible accounts of “extraterritorial killing, kidnapping, forced returns or other violence,” as well as “threats, harassment, arbitrary surveillance and coercion” of overseas dissidents and journalists.

RAW’s operations in Western countries during Modi’s tenure have been overwhelmingly aimed at followers of the Sikh religion, especially a minority faction seeking to revive the largely dormant cause of creating a separate state called “Khalistan.”

That movement had peaked in the 1980s, when thousands were killed in violent skirmishes between the Indian government and Sikh insurgents. One brutal sequence beginning in 1984 included an Indian assault on the Sikh religion’s holiest site, the Golden Temple; the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by Sikhs in her security detail; and the bombing of an Air India flight widely attributed to Sikh extremists. A fierce crackdown quashed the insurgency, prompting an exodus of Sikhs to diaspora communities in Canada, the United States and Britain.

As Sikhs settled into their new lives abroad, the Khalistani cause went quiet until a new generation of activists — whose leaders included Pannun and Nijjar — sought to rekindle the movement with unofficial referendums on Sikh statehood and with protests that at times have seemed to glorify violence. A parade in Canada last year included a float depicting Indira Gandhi’s assassination, and Khalistan supporters have stormed and defaced Indian diplomatic facilities in Western cities.

The effort has seemed to gain little traction beyond a minority within the diaspora communit

[dhaliwalmanjit]

On US Indictment against India's R&AW Official Vikash Yadav: What's the ...

[head-post]

Canada accuses Indian minister Amit Shah of plotting attack on Sikh separatists

The Canadian government claimed that Indian Home Minister Amit Shah was behind plots to attack Sikh separatists in the North American country, Reuters reported.

However, New Delhi dismissed Canada’s earlier allegations as baseless, denying any involvement. According to The Washington Post, Canadian officials claimed that Shah allegedly promoted a campaign of violence and intimidation against Sikh separatists in Canada, Canadian Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister David Morrison disclosed.

The journalist called me and asked if it [Shah] was that person. I confirmed it was that person.

India labelled Sikh separatists as “terrorists” and a threat to its security. Sikh separatists are demanding the secession of an independent homeland known as Khalistan from India. Insurgency in India in the 1980s and 1990s killed tens of thousands of people.

The 1984 riots erupted when Sikh bodyguards killed then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi after she had ordered security forces to storm the holiest Sikh temple to dislodge Sikh separatists.

Canada expelled Indian diplomats in mid-October, linking them to the assassination of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in 2023 in Canada. In response, India ordered the expulsion of Canadian diplomats.

The US also indicted former Indian intelligence officer Vikash Yadav for allegedly masterminding an uncovered plot to assassinate Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a dual US-Canadian citizen and Indian critic in New York.

The charges tested Washington and Ottawa’s relationship with New Delhi, which is often seen as a rival to Beijing.

Read more HERE

[indiawestheadlines]

US Charges Ex-Indian RAW Agent In Foiled Murder Plot In New York

WASHINGTON, DC (REUTERS) – The United States has charged a former Indian intelligence officer for allegedly directing a foiled plot to murder a Sikh separatist and Indian critic in New York City, with the FBI warning against such a retaliation aimed at a U.S. resident.

An indictment of Vikash Yadav was ordered to be unsealed on October 17. The U.S. Justice Department indictment mentioned Yadav as a former officer in India’s Research and Analysis Wing spy service.

Washington has alleged that Indian agents were involved in an attempted assassination plot against Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen.

[news365timesindia]

[ad_1] Vikash Yadav, wanted by the United States’s FBI for allegedly plotting the murder of Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, was arrested 10 months ago by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police in connection with an attempted murder and extortion case. The complainant, a Delhi-based businessman, also linked him to gangster Lawrence Bishnoi. The former RAW officer has been charged by US prosecutors for his alleged role in directing a failed plot to kill Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who holds dual citizenship of the US and Canada. The Ministry of External Affairs on Thursday confirmed that the individual named in the US Justice Department’s indictment was “no longer an employee of the government of India”. The businessman – who is said to have many contacts in west Asia – told police that his acquaintance had introduced him to Vikash Yadav in November 2023 and told him that he was a senior government officer. They soon shared mobile numbers to stay in touch. According to the complaint, Yadav often asked him about his work and friends. The former government employee had also told him that he worked as an undercover agent. But, he never shared any information about his work and office, the businessman told the police. [ad_2] Source link

[news365times]

[ad_1] Vikash Yadav, wanted by the United States’s FBI for allegedly plotting the murder of Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, was arrested 10 months ago by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police in connection with an attempted murder and extortion case. The complainant, a Delhi-based businessman, also linked him to gangster Lawrence Bishnoi. The former RAW officer has been charged by US prosecutors for his alleged role in directing a failed plot to kill Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who holds dual citizenship of the US and Canada. The Ministry of External Affairs on Thursday confirmed that the individual named in the US Justice Department’s indictment was “no longer an employee of the government of India”. The businessman – who is said to have many contacts in west Asia – told police that his acquaintance had introduced him to Vikash Yadav in November 2023 and told him that he was a senior government officer. They soon shared mobile numbers to stay in touch. According to the complaint, Yadav often asked him about his work and friends. The former government employee had also told him that he worked as an undercover agent. But, he never shared any information about his work and office, the businessman told the police. [ad_2] Source link

[dchan87]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/29/india-assassination-raw-sikhs-modi/

The White House went to extraordinary lengths last year to welcome Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a state visit meant to bolster ties with an ascendant power and potential partner against China.

Tables on the South Lawn were decorated with lotus blooms, the symbol of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. A chef was flown in from California to preside over a vegetarian menu. President Biden extolled the shared values of a relationship “built on mutual trust, candor and respect.”

But even as the Indian leader was basking in U.S. adulation on June 22, an officer in India’s intelligence service was relaying final instructions to a hired hit team to kill one of Modi’s most vocal critics in the United States.

The assassination is a “priority now,” wrote Vikram Yadav, an officer in India’s spy agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, or RAW, according to current and former U.S. and Indian security officials.

Yadav forwarded details about the target, Sikh activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, including his New York address, according to the officials and a U.S. indictment. As soon as the would-be assassins could confirm that Pannun, a U.S. citizen, was home, “it will be a go ahead from us.”

Yadav’s identity and affiliation, which have not previously been reported, provide the most explicit evidence to date that the assassination plan — ultimately thwarted by U.S. authorities — was directed from within the Indian spy service. 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.

In reports that have been closely held within the American government, U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that the operation targeting Pannun was approved by the RAW chief at the time, Samant Goel. That finding is consistent with accounts provided to The Washington Post by former senior Indian security officials who had knowledge of the operation and said Goel was under extreme pressure to eliminate the alleged threat of Sikh extremists overseas. U.S. spy agencies have more tentatively assessed that Modi’s national security adviser, Ajit Doval, was probably aware of RAW’s plans to kill Sikh activists, but officials emphasized that no smoking gun proof has emerged.

Neither Doval nor Goel responded to calls and text messages seeking comment.

This examination of Indian assassination plots in North America, and RAW’s increasingly aggressive global posture, is based on interviews with more than three dozen current and former senior officials in the United States, India, Canada, Britain, Germany and Australia. Citing security concerns and the sensitivity of the subject, most spoke on the condition of anonymity.

That India would pursue lethal operations in North America has stunned Western security officials. In some ways, however, it reflects a profound shift in geopolitics. After years of being treated as a second-tier player, India sees itself as a rising force in a new era of global competition, one that even the United States cannot afford to alienate.

Asked why India would risk attempting an assassination on U.S. soil, a Western security official said: “Because they knew they could get away with it.”

The foiled assassination was part of an escalating campaign of aggression by RAW against the Indian diaspora in Asia, Europe and North America, officials said. The plot in the United States coincided with the June 18 shooting death of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C., near Vancouver — an operation also linked to Yadav, according to Western officials. Both plots took place amid a wave of violence in Pakistan, where at least 11 Sikh or Kashmiri separatists living in exile and labeled terrorists by the Modi government have been killed over the past two years.

The Indian intelligence service has ramped up its surveillance and harassment of Sikhs and other groups overseas perceived as disloyal to the Modi government, officials said. RAW officers and agents have faced arrest, expulsion and reprimand in countries including Australia, Germany and Britain, according to officials who provided details to The Post that have not previously been made public.

The revelations have added to Western concerns about Modi, whose tenure has been marked by economic growth and rising global stature for India, but also deepening authoritarianism. A recent report by Freedom House, a human rights organization, listed India among the world’s practitioners of “transnational repression,” a term for governments’ use of intimidation or violence against their own citizens — dissidents, activists, journalists — in others’ sovereign territory.

India is part of an expanding roster of countries employing tactics previously associated with China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other repressive regimes. It is a trend fueled by factors ranging from surging strains of nationalism and authoritarianism to the spread of social media and spyware that both empower and endanger dissident groups.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs declined to respond to detailed questions submitted by The Post or provide comment for this article. Responding to questions raised by a Post reporter at a news briefing last week, spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said that India was still investigating the allegations and that the Pannun case “equally impacts our national security.”

Jaiswal referred reporters to previous ministry statements that targeted killings are “not our policy.”

For the Biden administration, which has spent three years cultivating closer ties with India, the assassination plots have pitted professed values against strategic interests.

Last July, White House officials began holding high-level meetings to discuss ways to respond without risking a wider rupture with India, officials said. CIA Director William J. Burns and others have been deployed to confront officials in the Modi government and demand accountability. But the United States has so far imposed no expulsions, sanctions or other penalties.

Even the U.S. criminal case reflects this restraint. Senior officials at the Justice Department and FBI had pushed to prosecute Yadav, officials said, a step that would have implicated RAW in a murder-for-hire conspiracy. But while a U.S. 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.

Justice Department officials who took part in the White House deliberations sided against those urging criminal charges against Yadav. Administration officials denied any undue influence. “Charging decisions are the prerogative of law enforcement alone,” said National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson, “and the Biden NSC has rigorously respected that independence.”

The only U.S. charges made public to date are against an alleged middleman, Nikhil Gupta, who is described in the indictment as an Indian drug and weapons trafficker enlisted to hire a contract killer. Gupta, an Indian national who has denied the charges, was arrested in Prague on June 30 and remains in prison. He is awaiting a Czech court ruling on a U.S. request for his extradition.

Even in recent days, the Biden administration has taken steps to contain the fallout from the assassination plot. White House officials warned the Modi government this month that The Post was close to publishing an investigation that would reveal new details about the case. It did so without notifying The Post.

Laying a trap

For decades, RAW was regarded as a regional player, preoccupied by proxy wars with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency. Under Modi, however, RAW has been wielded as a weapon against dissidents in India’s vast global diaspora, according to current and former U.S. and Indian officials.

The U.S. operation shows how RAW tried to export tactics it has used for years in countries neighboring India, officials said, including the use of criminal syndicates for operations it doesn’t want traced to New Delhi. It also exposed what former Indian security officials described as disturbing lapses in judgment and tradecraft.

After the plot against Pannun failed, the decision to entrust Yadav with the high-risk mission sparked recriminations within the agency, former officials said.Rather than joining RAW as a junior officer, Yadav had been brought in midcareer from India’s less prestigious Central Reserve Police Force, said one former official. As a result, the official said, Yadav lacked training and skills needed for an operation that meant going up against sophisticated U.S. counterintelligence capabilities.

Attempts by The Post to locate or contact Yadav were unsuccessful. A former Indian security official said he was transferred back to the Central Reserve Police Force after the Pannun plot unraveled.

The U.S. affidavit describes Yadav as an “associate” of Gupta who procured the alleged drug trafficker’s help by arranging for the dismissal of criminal charges he faced in India. Gupta had a history of collaborating with India’s security services on operations in Afghanistan and other countries, according to a person with knowledge of his background, but he had never been used for jobs in the West.

Petr Slepicka, a lawyer in Prague who represents Gupta, declined to comment on the case except to say that his client denies the charges against him. In court filings in India, Gupta’s family members described him as an innocent “middle-class businessman” whose arrest was a case of mistaken identity. They said he traveled to Prague “for tourism” and to explore new markets for a “handicraft” business, according to the court filings.

Yadav and Gupta spent weeks trading encrypted texts about the plot to kill Pannun, according to a U.S. affidavit filed in support of the request for Gupta’s extradition. To find a willing assassin, Gupta reached out to someone he had been in touch with for at least eight years and understood to be a drug and weapons dealer. In reality, according to the affidavit, the supposed dealer was an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

The two were discussing “another potential firearms and narcotics transaction,” according to the affidavit when, on May 30, Gupta abruptly asked “about the possibility of hiring someone to murder a lawyer living in New York.”

From that moment, U.S. agents had an inside but incomplete view of the unfolding conspiracy. They orchestrated Gupta’s introduction to a supposed assassin who was actually an undercover agent, according to court filings. They captured images of cash changing hands in a car in New York City — a $15,000 down payment on a job that was to cost $100,000 when completed.

At one point, the indictment said, U.S. agents even got footage of Gupta turning his camera toward three men “dressed in business attire, sitting around a conference room,” an apparent reference to Indian operatives overseeing the mission. “We are all counting on you,” Gupta told the purported assassin on the video call, according to the indictment.

Yadav indicated that there would be more jobs after Pannun, including one “big target” in Canada. But a separate hit team got to that assignment first, according to the U.S. indictment, suggesting that RAW was working with multiple criminal elements.

Hours after Nijjar was gunned down in his car on June 18 outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara temple in Surrey, Yadav sent a video clip to Gupta “showing Nijjar’s bloody body slumped in his vehicle,” according to the indictment.

The message arrived as U.S. authorities were laying a trap for Gupta. Seeking todraw him out of India and into a friendly jurisdiction, U.S. agents used their DEA informant to persuade Gupta to travel to the Czech Republic for what he was led to believe would be a clandestine meeting with his American contact, according to officials familiar with the operation.

Gupta arrived in Prague on June 30 — 11 days after Czech authorities, acting at the behest of U.S. officials, had secretly issued an arrest warrant for him.

As he exited Vaclav Havel Airport, Gupta was intercepted by Czech police, who ushered him into a vehicle in which two U.S. federal agents were waiting, according to court filings submitted by Gupta’s family in India. He was questioned for hours while the car meandered around the city. His laptop was seized and his phone held to his face to unlock it, according to the family petition.

Gupta was eventually deposited in Prague’s Pankrac Prison, where he remains awaiting possible extradition. Seeking help, Gupta’s family tried to reach Yadav last year but could find no trace of him, according to a person familiar with the matter. After months of near-constant contact with Gupta, the person said, CC-1 had “disappeared.”

Engaging with the underworld

Though Yadav served as RAW’s point man, current and former officials said the operation involved higher-ranking officials with ties to Modi’s inner circle. Among those suspected of involvement or awareness are Goel and Doval, though U.S. officials said there is no direct evidence so far of their complicity.

As RAW chief at the time, Goel was “under pressure” to neutralize the alleged threat posed by Sikh extremists overseas, said a former Indian security official. Goel reported to Doval, and had ties to the hard-line national security adviser going back decades.

Both had built their reputations in the 1980s, when the country’s security services battled Sikh separatists and Muslim militants. They were part of a generation of security professionals shaped by those conflicts much the way their U.S. counterparts came to be defined by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Doval, 79, has claimed roles in undercover missions from the jungles of Myanmar to the back alleys of Lahore, Pakistan — tales that contributed to his frequent depiction in the press as the “James Bond of India.”

He also exhibited a willingness to engage with the criminal underworld. In 2005, after retiring as head of India’s domestic intelligence service, he was inadvertently detained by Mumbai police while meeting with a reputed gangster. Doval was seeking to enlist one crime boss to assassinate another, according to media reports later confirmed by senior Indian officials.

Before being tapped as national security adviser by Modi in 2014, Doval publicly called for India’s security apparatus to shift from “defense” to “defensive offense” against groups threatening India from other countries, especially Pakistan.

Goel, who was then rising into the senior ranks at RAW, shared Doval’s instincts. Police forces under Goel’s command in the early 1990s were tied to more than 120 cases of alleged extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances or torture, according to a database maintained by Ensaaf, an Indian human rights group based in the United States. Goel was so closely associated with the brutal crackdown that he became an assassination target, according to associates who said he took to traveling in a bulletproof vehicle.

Former Indian officials who know both men said Goel would not have proceeded with assassination plots in North America without the approval of his superior and protector.

“We always had to go to the NSA for clearance for any operations,” said A.S. Dulat, who served as RAW chief in the early 2000s, referring to the national security adviser. Dulat emphasized in an interview with The Postthat he did not have inside knowledge of the alleged operations, and that assassinations were not part of RAW’s repertoire during his tenure.

U.S. intelligence agencies have reached a similar conclusion. Given Doval’s reputation and the hierarchical nature of the Indian system, CIA analysts have assessed that Doval probably knew of or approved RAW’s plans to kill Sikhs his government considered terrorists, U.S. officials said.

A fierce crackdown

India’s shift to “defensive offense” was followed by a series of clashes between RAW and Western domestic security services.

In Australia, two RAW officers were expelled in 2020 after authorities broke up what Mike Burgess, head of the Australian intelligence service, described as a “nest of spies.”

Foreign officers were caught monitoring “their country’s diaspora community,” trying to penetrate local police departments and stealing information about sensitive security systems at Australian airports, Burgess said in a 2021 speech. He didn’t name the service, but Australian officials confirmed to The Post that it was RAW.

In Germany, federal police have made arrestsin recent yearsto root out agents RAW had recruited within Sikh communities. Among them, German officials said, were a husband and wife who operated a website purportedly covering local Sikh events but who were secretly on RAW’s payroll.

In Britain, RAW’s surveillance and harassment of the Sikh population — especially a large concentration near Birmingham — became so egregious in 2014 and 2015 that MI5, Britain’s domestic security service, delivered warnings to Goel, who was then serving as RAW’s station chief in London.

When confronted, Goel scoffed at his counterparts and accused them of coddling Sikh activists he said should be considered terrorists, according to current and former British officials. After further run-ins, British authorities threatened to expel him, officials said. Instead, Goel returned to New Delhi and continued to climb RAW’s ranks until, in 2019,he was given the agency’s top job.

RAW’s record of aggressive activity in Britain has fanned suspicion that the agency was involved in the death of Sikh activist Avtar Singh Khanda, who died in Birmingham last year, three days before Nijjar was killed in Canada. British officials have said Khanda suffered from leukemia and died of natural causes, though his family and supporters have continued to press for further investigation.

A U.S. State Department human rights report released this month catalogued India’s alleged engagement in transnational repression. It cited credible accounts of “extraterritorial killing, kidnapping, forced returns or other violence,” as well as “threats, harassment, arbitrary surveillance and coercion” of overseas dissidents and journalists.

RAW’s operations in Western countries during Modi’s tenure have been overwhelmingly aimed at followers of the Sikh religion, especially a minority faction seeking to revive the largely dormant cause of creating a separate state called “Khalistan.”

That movement had peaked in the 1980s, when thousands were killed in violent skirmishes between the Indian government and Sikh insurgents. One brutal sequence beginning in 1984 included an Indian assault on the Sikh religion’s holiest site, the Golden Temple; the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by Sikhs in her security detail; and the bombing of an Air India flight widely attributed to Sikh extremists. A fierce crackdown quashed the insurgency, prompting an exodus of Sikhs to diaspora communities in Canada, the United States and Britain.

As Sikhs settled into their new lives abroad, the Khalistani cause went quiet until a new generation of activists —whose leaders included Pannun and Nijjar — sought to rekindle the movement with unofficial referendums on Sikh statehood and with protests that at times have seemed to glorify violence. A parade in Canada last year included a float depicting Indira Gandhi’s assassination, and Khalistan supporters have stormed and defaced Indian diplomatic facilities in Western cities.

The effort has seemed to gain little traction beyond a minority within the diaspora community. Even so, it has been portrayed as a resurgent menace by Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. Indian officials have accused Canada and the United States of harboring Sikh separatists who they say have plotted attacks and smuggled weapons into India.

Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi and an expert on the insurgency in Punjab, said BJP depictions of the Sikh threat are “far in excess of what actually exists.” Officials have political incentive to exaggerate, he said, “because it is useful to polarize and to keep a threat alive so the state can present itself as a guarantor of security to 80 percent of the country — the Hindus — who are supposedly in danger.”

In recent years, Pannun and Nijjar had come to personify that alleged danger. In 2020, both men were declared terrorists by Modi’s government under an amended law that was denounced by U.N. officials and human rights groups for depriving suspects of due process. Their organization, Sikhs for Justice, was accused of leading “a concerted secessionist campaign.”

In his few public remarks on the plots to kill Pannun and Nijjar, Modi has been dismissive. “If a citizen of ours has done anything good or bad, we are ready to look into it,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times published in late December. “Our commitment is to the rule of law.”

U.S. and Western security officials said it is unlikely that RAW would have launched such operations without a clear understanding that doing so would be met with approval by the prime minister.

Since coming to power in 2014, Modi has cultivated the aura of a Hindu strongman. He has jailed dissidents, released photos of himself riding in tanks and flying fighter jets, and boasted of ordering an airstrike in 2019 against nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Pro-Modi media outlets have burnished this bellicose image. Last year, as 11 alleged militants were killed in a wave of unclaimed attacks in Pakistan, favored Indian TV stations celebrated the “professional” killing of Khalistanis outside India’s borders. Among those killed was Paramjit Singh Panjwar, 63, a leader of a militant group called the Khalistan Commando Force, who was shot dead last May near a park in Lahore by two gunmen who fled on motorcycle, according to media reports.

Resolving the matter internally

Even as the alleged RAW assassination plots reached their final stages, officials in both the United States and Canada remained unaware of the full dimensions of the conspiracy.

In Canada, Nijjar’s death was at first assumed to be a case of score-settling between rival Sikh and criminal factions in British Colombia. In the United States, the Pannun plot was for weeks treated as a DEA case.

It wasn’t until Gupta’s arrest that U.S. officials obtained evidence that an officer in India’s spy service was behind the conspiracy, officials said. Devices seized from Gupta provided a trove of new intelligence, including his extensive communications with Yadav, officials said.

Shortly afterward, in July, the White House convened a series of “deputies committee” meetings led by deputy national security adviser Jon Finer and involving Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco and Deputy CIA Director David Cohen.

Those assembled confronted evidence of a grave violation of U.S. sovereignty by a nation seen as increasingly indispensable in the global competition with China. After weeks of deliberations, administration officials settled on a plan they hoped would ward off future plots without causing deeper ruptures with India.

In early August, the administration dispatched CIA Director Burns to New Delhi to confront his counterparts with intelligence on the Pannun plot and give Modi’s government a chance to resolve the matter internally. The United States would refrain from punitive responses but pushed India to hold those responsible accountable. The message was reinforced in subsequent closed-door conversations, including a private meeting in New Delhi in September between Modi and Biden, officials said.

There would be no expulsions of RAW officers or economic sanctions against India. A deal to sell up to $4 billion in U.S. armed drones to India, briefly put on pause, was allowed to proceed when key congressional leaders signed off. Justice Department officials opted for at least the time being not to file charges against Yadav.

The approach has struck some as too accommodating. Several current and former officials noted that, in contrast to the decision on Yadav, the United States has in recent years filed charges against Russian and Iranian intelligence officers in alleged plots on American soil.

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment on the India case, saying it is an “ongoing matter.”

The treatment of India does, however, have echoes of how the United States dealt with Saudi Arabia after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was implicated in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S. resident and Washington Post contributing columnist who was killed and dismembered in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

White House officials defend their actions, saying that in private meetings Modi and his closest advisers have taken the matter seriously and pledged accountability. Officials noted that Yadav could still be charged and other penalties imposed if New Delhi fails to follow through on these commitments.

Canada, which has the world’s largest Sikh population outside India, took a more forceful approach. In September, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly accused India of complicity in the killing of Nijjar and expelled RAW’s station chief in Ottawa.

Relations between the countries went into a tailspin. Canada withdrew 41 diplomats from India after Modi’s government threatened to revoke their legally protected status. Canadian officials who traveled to New Delhi for meetings with Doval and others said they were greeted with denials of Indian involvement and lectures on alleged Sikh terrorism.

Canadian intelligence agencies saw a surge in communications from Indian officials in Delhi to Indian diplomats in Ottawa conspicuously professing ignorance about who was responsible for Nijjar’s killing — exchanges that Canadian officials came to regard as disinformation intended to be intercepted and confuse investigators, officials said.

The standoff eased over the ensuing months, officials said, as Modi officials facing U.S.-provided evidence came to realize that their denials were untenable.

‘The New India’

There are indications that India planned a broader wave of killings in the United States and Canada.

Yadav had told Gupta there were “three or four” other people RAW wanted dead once Nijjar and Pannun had been assassinated, according to the affidavit. Gupta, in turn, told a U.S. agent posing as a hit man that there are “so many targets.”

In the past two years, at least five Sikh activists in the United States and five in Canada were warned by law enforcement to take precautions. Among them was Pritpal Singh in Fremont, Calif., who said he was visited by FBI agents days after Nijjar was killed.

India continues to treat the matter with a mixture of indignation and resignation.

The government appointed a special panel to investigate the attacks and report its findings to the United States. A U.S. delegation that traveled to New Delhi several weeks ago for an update on the probe, however, returned with little evidence of meaningful progress. Indian officials gave no indication that their investigation would implicate senior officials in Modi’s government, said officials briefed on the trip, and pressed their U.S. visitors to supply more information supporting their allegations.

Goel stepped down as RAW chief on June 30 — the day Gupta was taken into custody. Weeks earlier, Goel had sounded confident about securing a contract extension, a friend said.

RAW has called back officers in Washington, San Francisco and elsewhere with ties to Goel. But others remain overseas, including operatives assigned to the consulate in Vancouver whom Canadian officials said they suspect of having provided logistics or intelligence support to Nijjar’s assailants. An investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is ongoing.

Some in India have bristled at what they perceive as a Western double standard. Citing the campaigns of targeted killings carried out by the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, they question why Delhi should not be entitled to take similar measures against those it deems terrorists.

Western officials reject the comparison, noting that U.S. counterterrorism operations, including drone strikes, were largely confined to ungoverned territories — not major cities in partner democracies.

For Modi, the assassination allegations appear to have only bolstered his political standing.

Almost a year after he was feted at the White House, the Indian prime minister is poised to clinch a third term in national elections that beganthis month. At a recent campaign rally in Rajasthan state, Modi told thousands of cheering supporters, “Today, even India’s enemies know: This is Modi, this is the New India.”

“This New India,” he added, “comes into your home to kill you.”

Cate Brown, Souad Mekhennet and Aaron Schaffer in Washington, Karishma Mehrotra in New Delhi and Ladka Bauerova in Prague contributed to this report.

[tellywoodtrash]

murder meri jaan! ep 12 lb

dude honestly sonal is the best investigator on this team and she’s not even a trained cop.

wait arun manager hai toh tum kaun ho??? how many team members does one social media influencer even need?????

why is only half the team wearing shoe covers while traipsing all over the crime scene???? esp. in a case like this one where it's impt to track the movements of the killer???

lmao ofc sonal went straight for the toiletries. 🤣🤣🤣

mmmmm yes adiiiii sirrrrrrrrrr cross your arms like that in that tiiiiiiightass jacket 🥵🥵🥵

SONAL OUT HERE BLOWING ALL THESE OTHER FUCKERS OUTTA THE WATER WITH HER OBSERVATIONS AND KNOWLEDGE. IDK ABOUT ADI BUT I SURE AM IN LOVE WITH HER. 🤩🤩🤩

lmaoooooooo her cockiness is jaayaz.

yadav and his ainvayi ke masle lol.

“bade papa” love how all workplaces have a faltooooo nickname for boss 🤭🤭🤭

wtf is adi’s problem with sonal being empathetic. that’s her greatest strength!!!!

aren’t these normal body language reactions for ppl in such a situation???

LMAO YADAV AND HIS DARAAZ ISSUES

bhaskar hanging up on boss making 😒🙄😒 faces is honestly the most relatable.

yet another scathing indictment on how social media influencers are ridiculously overpaid for a service literally no one asked for.

awwwwww bhaskar/shahid brotp amar rahe!!!! 🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽

adi’s mom and sonal should start their alag ka investigation agency coz they’re so much more smart than these dumbass men.

lmaoooooooooooooooo bhaskar “dinner meri taraf se” bolke just brought him to adi’s house to eat. 🤣🤣🤣

ugh why anyone bothers to watch indian news channels is beyond me. full time chillam chilli and faltoo ka conjecture.

*bhaskar taking a hugeass mouthful* adi: “bandh kar bhaskar!!!!!” bhaskar: 😶😶😶 adi: tv bandh kar................... ���🙄😑

asjddksjsjahs bhaskar taking bets on who the murderer is.

and also dropping information that he shoulda disclosed before, and adi is 3000% done lmao.

hahahaha adi’s face at mummy cussing. mummy is cutest yaar. ☺️☺️☺️

wtf man, why didn’t the managers disclose this shit before about the death threats.

miloni was amazing employer haan.

okaaaaaaaaay sonal having a suuuuper disproportionate response to situation? i am as alarmed as the boys are. 😟😟😟

also who’s writing these episode blurbs; they’re talking about things that don’t even happen in the ep???? 🤔🤔🤔

[news360-daily]

Following 28 years in Pakistan prison, Kuldeep Yadav gets back in Ahmedabad

Following 28 years in Pakistan prison, Kuldeep Yadav gets back in Ahmedabad

Image by|Times of india Kuldeep Yadav with his siblings in Ahmedabad on Wednesday AHMEDABAD: It was a late Rakshabandhan gift for Chandkheda-occupant Rekha whose sibling Kuldeep Yadav got back to home and hearth subsequent to serving 28 years in Pakistan prison. Read also: Chanchal Chowdhury explains he’s not a piece of ‘Munna Bhai 3’ – restrictive! How bombed Army applicants are looking for greatness in combative techniques Yadav, presently 59, was captured by Pakistani security organizations in 1994 on charges of undercover work and condemned to life term. Yadav was delivered last week by the Pakistan Supreme Court and shipped off India through Wagah verge on August 28. Rekha used to send his rakhi consistently addressed to Kot Lakhpat prison in any event, when he had gone incommunicado beginning around 2013, seeking divine intervention for his security and prosperity. Settled to be free at long last, Yadav's difficulty, in any case, is not even close to finished. He is restless and stressed over his business and has made a close to home enticement for the public authority and residents to help him. Conversing with journalists, Yadav said, "In 1992, I was shipped off Pakistan. Subsequent to serving two years on unfamiliar soil, I wanted to get back to India in June 1994, yet prior to coming to my country, I was gotten by Pakistani organizations in 1994 and delivered under the watchful eye of a court. For two long years, I was examined by different organizations." A Pakistan court condemned him to life detainment in 1996 and from that point forward he was stopped in Kot-Lakhpat prison in Lahore. Kuldeep Yadav additionally recollects his brotherhood with Sarabjeet Singh of Punjab, who was likewise indicted for charges of illegal intimidation and spying. He passed on following an assault on him by detainees in the Pakistan prison. "I had an opportunity to meet the late Sarbjeet in Kot-Lakhpat prison. The jail specialists used to orchestrate gatherings between us each fortnight. Till Sarabjeet's demise, Pakistani and Indian prison detainees had similar sleeping shelter. Afterward, the prison detainees from Pakistan and India were isolated," he said. Last week, Yadav was gotten by Indian authorities on the Wagah line and accompanied home by a cop, said his sibling Dilip. "It was challenging as far as we were concerned to remember him after so lengthy. The equivalent was the situation with him," Dilip added. Stressed over his future, Yadav said that he was almost 60 now and nobody would extend to him an employment opportunity. "I have served the country for a very long time and have nothing left with me. I'm reliant upon my more youthful sibling Dilip and sister Rekha. I trust the public authority deals with us like resigned officers and gives some pay. I also ought to be given farming area, benefits and a plot to develop a house so I can reconstruct my life. At 59, who will enlist me?" said Yadav and spoke to residents to expand social and monetary help. Read the full article

[janis-ace]

PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER 1 - BILL GATES INDICTED FOR MURDER IN AN INDIAN COURT

PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER 1 – BILL GATES INDICTED FOR MURDER IN AN INDIAN COURT

Public enemy number one Bill Gates has been indicted for murder in an Indian court. A 23 year old young man succumbed to the New World Order DEATH JAB – COVISHIELD. His name can be found on page 45 of this court document. Please download and examine the following court document: kiran-yadav-wpgatesDownload World War III of the People vs the Government is now far ADVANCED. The world at war is…

[alittledropofheaven]

As India slowly wakes up to the horrors that were inflicted on eight-year-old Asifa Bano in January, collective outrage is gathering steam. New hashtags are trending every day. Horrifying details about the crime are emerging to shake us out of our consciousness. Armchair activists are leading the shout to get justice for Asifa.

Rightly so. It is impossible not to be moved to tears after reading the terrible details about the Kathua rape case. From being drugged, to being gangraped by men who wanted to ‘satisfy their lust’, to being strangled and bludgeoned to death in two horrific attempts, to her tiny withered body being dumped in a forest, Asifa was treated to inhumanity that is unimaginable. Like many others, I am also walking through my days unable to shake off her brutalised face. How can our nation produce such depraved souls? And how can they be protected under the guise of religion and nationalism? How did we go from #BetiBachao (save our daughters) to #BalatkariKoBachao (save our rapists)? Today, we are seeing the true face of India and it is ugly.

Protesters demand justice for Asifa. PTI Photo

But what is even more disgusting is to call Asifa 'the new Nirbhaya'. Why? Because it shows us that we haven’t learnt our lesson. We haven’t had enough. We haven’t changed. When we call another rape victim by the name of India’s most brutalised rape victim, it shows us that we’ve made peace with the brutality of rape and with what happens to its victims. How can we reduce the victim of rape to a moniker?

When the Supreme Court awarded a well-deserved death sentence to the four convicts who brutally raped, mutilated and murdered 23-year-old Jyoti Singh Pandey, we called it a ‘day of victory’ for India. The death sentence was supposed to send a strong message to rapists and perpetrators of sexual violence. It was supposed to stop them from committing further heinous crimes. It was supposed to set a precedent for India. It was supposed to demonstrate that India could protect its sisters, daughters and mothers in a dignified and fair manner. It was supposed to be the beginning of justice, equality and safety to all the women in our country.

But, did it? Look at where we are now. Back to square one. Where is the change? There is none. It would appear that Jyoti Singh’s verdict has taught us nothing. Our candle marches, our protests, our outrage, has come to nothing. The relentless work of selfless activists, lawyers, citizens, and NGOs, who fought long and hard to ensure justice, has meant nothing.

Because today we are still seeing incidents like Kathua and Unnao. We are still reading about horrific cases like Rohtak, Jisha, Bilkis Bano, among many others.

Because we really haven’t had enough, have we?

We read incidents of rape every single day; obviously because a woman is raped every 20 minutes in our country. Yet, we react only when the rape is grossly heinous. Our anger is as cheap as our lives. As a nation, we’ve become desensitised to rape. We still need gross human violations to have our collective conscience shaken. We still need brutality to be inhumane for us to realise our humanity. We quantify rape as ‘good rape’ and ‘bad rape’ and make time only for the rarest of rare cases and the most brutal of brutal crimes. We forget that rape is rape, and should be met with revolt, no matter what the severity.

In Saudi Arabia, they behead men for rape. In China, they castrate men. In North Korea, it’s the firing squad. And we — the rape capital of the world — just seem to love our rapists. We are lenient with the way we punish them. Our great ‘Anti Rape Bill’ requires proving offense beyond a reasonable doubt, while giving the accused the benefit of doubt. We do not have effective laws; they exist but are not implemented, like the POCSO Act. We have a low rate of conviction. We do not use stringent punishment. We even fight against capital punishment for men who treat the lives of women as flimsy. We do not use fast track courts. We have only one judge for every one lakh people. Our schemes help women in distress after the crime is over, not to prevent crime. Knowing all this, the rapists take a chance. They continue raping, because they know there’s a bigger probability that they’ll walk away scot-free than be indicted. If there’s no punishment to a crime, why will the criminal stop?

More so, we glorify rapists by saying ‘boys will be boys’. When Mulayam Singh Yadav says ‘boys make mistakes’, when Abu Azmi says ‘even women are guilty (of being raped)’, when ML Sharma says ‘there is no place for women in our culture’, we make them household names instead of punishing them for incitation. We normalise rape in our culture. Bade bade deshon mein aaisi choti choti baatein ... hoti rehti hai, right? (Small squabbles happen in big countries).

This subversion is demonstrative in the new video by The Quint where we see the cavalier attitude of men and women, boys and girls, about rape. From saying it is consensual to saying ‘ek haath se taali nahin bajti’ to saying that girls are responsible for getting raped, it shows us the pervasive attitude in Haryana about rape. We’ve made it a ‘culture’. And, no. This is not about Haryana. Or Uttar Pradesh or Jammu and Kashmir. This is not about Hindu rape or Muslim rape. This is not even about the BJP or Congress. This is about what we've become. Nothing but animals. Because we continue to make women the repositories of shame in these matters. Because it is women who remain victims even after so-called justice has been delivered. Because the extent of violence and inhumanity of sexual assaults against women is not only continuing, it is increasing.

So what about Nirbhaya is there to really be proud of? Yes, the December 2012 case was considered a landmark verdict, the second of its kind in India after the Shakti Mills gangrape case. Yes, it provided retribution not just to the rape victim but also to our nation’s outraged citizens. Yet, one of Jyoti Singh Pandey’s rapists, the juvenile who allegedly inflicted the most serious wounds, is now free. We haven’t even put to use the Rs 3,000-crore Nirbhaya Fund to improve the safety and dignity of our women. Isn’t justice delayed, justice denied? Clearly not enough has been done in the case for us to nonchalantly evoke 'Nirbhaya' again.

'Nirbhaya' means fearless. The only people who were fearless in Asifa’s case were the perpetrators — the rapists who did the crime and the police who covered up the crime. How can we equate the two? 'Nirbhaya' evokes dignity, at least in death if not in life. Let’s give Asifa that, in death if not in life, before we call her 'another Nirbhaya'. Let's scream and shout and protest until we get justice for Asifa. Let’s do that before we become dead as human beings. Let's do it before we fail all the women in our country.

Asifa is not 'the new Nirbhaya', because there should be no 'Nirbhaya'. Let’s never forget that.

The writer is an award-winning author, columnist, feminist and TEDx Speaker. She tweets @MeghnaPant

[head-post]

US demands India’s accountability for Sikh separatist murder plot

US officials said they wanted a swift outcome and greater accountability from the Indian side after an investigation into Indian involvement in a foiled plot to kill a Sikh activist in the US, according to Reuters.

An Indian Enquiry Committee visited Washington last week to discuss India’s investigations. The move came after the Justice Department said an Indian intelligence official masterminded plans to kill Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun who held dual US-Canadian citizenship last year.

We’ve communicated really clearly that the US government isn’t going to feel fully satisfied until we see that meaningful accountability takes place. We have been emphasising that we hope that India will move as quickly as possible through their investigative process.

Last week, the United States indicted Vikash Yadav, a former officer of India’s spy service Research and Analysis Wing, for leading a plot against the separatist Sikh in New York. According to the indictment, Yadav, who was then an employee of the Indian government, collaborated with others in India and abroad to mastermind a plot against Pannun beginning in May 2023.

India labelled Sikh separatists as “terrorists” and a threat to its security. The Sikh separatists, in turn, demand the secession of the homeland, known as Khalistan, from India. The insurgency in India in the 1980s and 1990s killed tens of thousands of people.

Pannun claimed Yadav was a “mid-tier soldier” tasked with organising the killing by senior Indian officials. Since India announced in November 2023 that it would conduct a formal investigation into the allegations, it said almost nothing publicly.

New Delhi separately continued its diplomatic dispute with Canada over the June 2023 assassination of another Sikh leader. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated in September that his country was investigating allegations that the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was behind the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian Sikh separatist.

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[news365timesindia]

[ad_1] By Anjali Sharma NEW YORK – US Justice Department on Friday announced the filing of murder-for-hire and money laundering charges against a former Indian government employee, Vikash Yadav, in connection with his alleged role in directing a foiled plot to assassinate Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, an American citizen. US Justice Department in a statement said “Yadav is charged in a second superseding indictment unsealed today in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. Yadav’s alleged co-conspirator, Nikhil Gupta, 53, was previously charged and extradited to the United States on the charges contained in the first superseding indictment. Yadav remains at large.” Attorney General Merrick B Garland has expressed the US Justice Department’s commitment to hold accountable any person who seeks to harm American citizens. “The Justice Department will be relentless in holding accountable any person regardless of their position or proximity to power — who seeks to harm and silence American citizens,” Merrick B Garland said. Garland said that the US has foiled an attempt by Vikash Yadav and his co-conspirator Nikhil Gupta to assassinate an American citizen on US soil. “As alleged, last year, we foiled an attempt by Vikash Yadav, an Indian government employee, and his co-conspirator, Nikhil Gupta, to assassinate an American citizen on US soil. Today’s charges demonstrate that the Justice Department will not tolerate attempts to target and endanger Americans and to undermine the rights to which every US citizen is entitled,” Garland said. FBI Director Christopher Wray has claimed that the defendant, an Indian government employee, allegedly conspired with a criminal associate and attempted to assassinate an American citizen on US soil for exercising their First Amendment rights. Wray said, “The FBI will not tolerate acts of violence or other efforts to retaliate against those residing in the U.S. for exercising their constitutionally protected rights. We are committed to working with our partners to detect, disrupt, and hold accountable foreign nationals or others who seek to engage in such acts of transnational repression.” Assistant Attorney General Matthew G Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division stressed that the charges announced today are a “grave example of the increase in lethal plotting and other forms of violent transnational repression targeting diaspora communities in the United States.” Olsen said that issuing a warning to nations against planning such criminal activity, “To the governments around the world who may be considering such criminal activity and to the communities they would target, let there be no doubt that the Department of Justice is committed to disrupting and exposing these plots and to holding the wrongful actors accountable no matter who they are or where they reside.” Administrator Anne Milgram of the Drug Enforcement Administration has stated that the DEA foiled the assassination attempt in 2023 and “has continued to trace this case back to an employee of the Indian government whom we charge was an orchestrator of this intricate murder-for-hire scheme. DEA did not relent, and today’s indictment names Vikash Yadav as an alleged mastermind.” She said, “We charge that Yadav, an employee of the Indian government, used his position of authority and access to confidential information to direct the attempted assassination of an outspoken critic of the Indian government here on US soil.” Anne Milgram noted that the case was led by the DEA New York Division’s Drug Enforcement Task Force, which is comprised of the DEA, the New York State Police, and the New York City Police Department. According to US Attorney Damian Williams, the office last year charged Nikhil Gupta for conspired to assassinate an American citizen of Indian origin on US soil. “But, as alleged, Gupta did not work alone. Today, we announce charges against an Indian government employee, Vikash

Yadav, who orchestrated the plot from India and directed Gupta to hire a hitman to murder the victim. The right to exercise free speech is foundational to our democracy, and predicated on the notion that we can do so without fear of violence or reprisal, including from beyond our borders,” Williams said. Yadav was working together with others, including Gupta, in India, and elsewhere, directed a plot to assassinate “an attorney and political activist who is a US citizen of Indian origin residing in New York City (the victim) on American soil as alleged in the second superseding indictment and other public court documents, in 2023, US Justice Department said, “During times relevant to the second superseding indictment, Yadav was employed by the Government of India’s Cabinet Secretariat, which houses Indian’s foreign intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing. Yadav has described his position as a ‘senior field officer” with responsibilities in “security management” and “intelligence’.” “Yadav has referenced previously serving in India’s Central Reserve Police Force and receiving “officer[] training” in “battle craft” and “weapons.” Yadav is a citizen and resident of India, and he directed the plot to assassinate the Victim from India,” it added. Yadav recruited Gupta to orchestrate the assassination of a US citizen. Gupta is an Indian national who resided in India and has described his involvement in international narcotics and weapons trafficking in his communications with Yadav and others. After receiving instruction from Yadav, Gupta contacted an individual whom Gupta “believed to be a criminal associate, but who was in fact a confidential source (the CS) working with the DEA, for assistance in contracting a hitman to murder the victim in New York City.” US Justice Department said, “The CS introduced Gupta to a purported hitman, who was in fact a DEA undercover officer (the UC). Yadav subsequently agreed, in dealings brokered by Gupta, to pay the UC USD 100,000 to murder the victim. On or about June 9, 2023, Yadav and Gupta arranged for an associate to deliver USD 15,000 in cash to the UC as an advance payment for the murder. Yadav’s associate then delivered the USD 15,000 to the UC in Manhattan.” In June 2023, in furtherance of the assassination plot, Yadav provided Gupta with personal information about the victim, including the victim’s home address in New York City, phone numbers related to the victim, and details regarding the victim’s day-to-day conduct, which Gupta then passed to the UC. Yadav directed Gupta to provide regular updates on the progress of the assassination plot, which Gupta accomplished by forwarding to Yadav, among other things, surveillance photographs of the victim, according to the statement. The statement reads, “Gupta directed the UC to carry out the murder as soon as possible, but Gupta also specifically instructed the UC not to commit the murder around the time of the Indian Prime Minister’s official state visit to the United States, which was scheduled to begin on or about June 20, 2023.” On t June 18, 2023, masked gunmen shot Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar outside a Gurdwara in Canada’s British Columbia. US Justice Department said, “On or about June 19, 2023, the day after the Nijjar murder, Gupta told the UC that Nijjar “was also the target” and ‘we have so many targets.” Gupta added that, in light of Nijjar’s murder, there was “now no need to wait” on killing the Victim. On or about June 20, 2023, Yadav sent Gupta a news article about the victim and messaged Gupta, “[i]t’s [a] priority now’.” According to the statement, Yadav and Gupta of India have been charged with murder-for-hire, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison; conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison; and conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the US Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The DEA New York Division and the FBI New York Field Office’s Counterintelligence Division are carrying out an investigation into the case, with valuable assistance provided by the DEA Special Operations Division, DEA Vienna Country Office, FBI Prague Country Office, Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs, and Czech Republic’s National Drug Headquarters. Assistant US Attorneys Camille L Fletcher, Ashley C. Nicolas, and Alexander Li for the Southern District of New York are prosecuting the case with assistance from Trial Attorney Christopher Cook of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section and Trial Attorney AJ Dixon of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section. The US Justice Department noted, “An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.” The Ministry of External Affairs confirmed that the individual named in the US Justice Department’s indictment case in a foiled assassination plot against Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, was no longer an employee of the government of India. “The US State Department informed us that the individual in the Justice Department indictment is no longer employed by India. I confirm that he is no longer an employee of the Government of India,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a press conference. Gupta was extradited from the Czech Republic to the US to stand trial, where he pleaded ‘not guilty.’ India formed a high-level inquiry committee to address the security concerns highlighted by the US government. India MEA said that India takes such inputs seriously since they impinge on national security interests as well, and relevant departments were already examining the issue. The post DOJ announces charges against Vikash Yadav in foiled plot to assassinate Khalistani Pannun appeared first on Global Governance News- Asia's First Bilingual News portal for Global News and Updates. [ad_2] Source link

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[ad_1] By Anjali Sharma NEW YORK – US Justice Department on Friday announced the filing of murder-for-hire and money laundering charges against a former Indian government employee, Vikash Yadav, in connection with his alleged role in directing a foiled plot to assassinate Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, an American citizen. US Justice Department in a statement said “Yadav is charged in a second superseding indictment unsealed today in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. Yadav’s alleged co-conspirator, Nikhil Gupta, 53, was previously charged and extradited to the United States on the charges contained in the first superseding indictment. Yadav remains at large.” Attorney General Merrick B Garland has expressed the US Justice Department’s commitment to hold accountable any person who seeks to harm American citizens. “The Justice Department will be relentless in holding accountable any person regardless of their position or proximity to power — who seeks to harm and silence American citizens,” Merrick B Garland said. Garland said that the US has foiled an attempt by Vikash Yadav and his co-conspirator Nikhil Gupta to assassinate an American citizen on US soil. “As alleged, last year, we foiled an attempt by Vikash Yadav, an Indian government employee, and his co-conspirator, Nikhil Gupta, to assassinate an American citizen on US soil. Today’s charges demonstrate that the Justice Department will not tolerate attempts to target and endanger Americans and to undermine the rights to which every US citizen is entitled,” Garland said. FBI Director Christopher Wray has claimed that the defendant, an Indian government employee, allegedly conspired with a criminal associate and attempted to assassinate an American citizen on US soil for exercising their First Amendment rights. Wray said, “The FBI will not tolerate acts of violence or other efforts to retaliate against those residing in the U.S. for exercising their constitutionally protected rights. We are committed to working with our partners to detect, disrupt, and hold accountable foreign nationals or others who seek to engage in such acts of transnational repression.” Assistant Attorney General Matthew G Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division stressed that the charges announced today are a “grave example of the increase in lethal plotting and other forms of violent transnational repression targeting diaspora communities in the United States.” Olsen said that issuing a warning to nations against planning such criminal activity, “To the governments around the world who may be considering such criminal activity and to the communities they would target, let there be no doubt that the Department of Justice is committed to disrupting and exposing these plots and to holding the wrongful actors accountable no matter who they are or where they reside.” Administrator Anne Milgram of the Drug Enforcement Administration has stated that the DEA foiled the assassination attempt in 2023 and “has continued to trace this case back to an employee of the Indian government whom we charge was an orchestrator of this intricate murder-for-hire scheme. DEA did not relent, and today’s indictment names Vikash Yadav as an alleged mastermind.” She said, “We charge that Yadav, an employee of the Indian government, used his position of authority and access to confidential information to direct the attempted assassination of an outspoken critic of the Indian government here on US soil.” Anne Milgram noted that the case was led by the DEA New York Division’s Drug Enforcement Task Force, which is comprised of the DEA, the New York State Police, and the New York City Police Department. According to US Attorney Damian Williams, the office last year charged Nikhil Gupta for conspired to assassinate an American citizen of Indian origin on US soil. “But, as alleged, Gupta did not work alone. Today, we announce charges against an Indian government employee, Vikash

Yadav, who orchestrated the plot from India and directed Gupta to hire a hitman to murder the victim. The right to exercise free speech is foundational to our democracy, and predicated on the notion that we can do so without fear of violence or reprisal, including from beyond our borders,” Williams said. Yadav was working together with others, including Gupta, in India, and elsewhere, directed a plot to assassinate “an attorney and political activist who is a US citizen of Indian origin residing in New York City (the victim) on American soil as alleged in the second superseding indictment and other public court documents, in 2023, US Justice Department said, “During times relevant to the second superseding indictment, Yadav was employed by the Government of India’s Cabinet Secretariat, which houses Indian’s foreign intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing. Yadav has described his position as a ‘senior field officer” with responsibilities in “security management” and “intelligence’.” “Yadav has referenced previously serving in India’s Central Reserve Police Force and receiving “officer[] training” in “battle craft” and “weapons.” Yadav is a citizen and resident of India, and he directed the plot to assassinate the Victim from India,” it added. Yadav recruited Gupta to orchestrate the assassination of a US citizen. Gupta is an Indian national who resided in India and has described his involvement in international narcotics and weapons trafficking in his communications with Yadav and others. After receiving instruction from Yadav, Gupta contacted an individual whom Gupta “believed to be a criminal associate, but who was in fact a confidential source (the CS) working with the DEA, for assistance in contracting a hitman to murder the victim in New York City.” US Justice Department said, “The CS introduced Gupta to a purported hitman, who was in fact a DEA undercover officer (the UC). Yadav subsequently agreed, in dealings brokered by Gupta, to pay the UC USD 100,000 to murder the victim. On or about June 9, 2023, Yadav and Gupta arranged for an associate to deliver USD 15,000 in cash to the UC as an advance payment for the murder. Yadav’s associate then delivered the USD 15,000 to the UC in Manhattan.” In June 2023, in furtherance of the assassination plot, Yadav provided Gupta with personal information about the victim, including the victim’s home address in New York City, phone numbers related to the victim, and details regarding the victim’s day-to-day conduct, which Gupta then passed to the UC. Yadav directed Gupta to provide regular updates on the progress of the assassination plot, which Gupta accomplished by forwarding to Yadav, among other things, surveillance photographs of the victim, according to the statement. The statement reads, “Gupta directed the UC to carry out the murder as soon as possible, but Gupta also specifically instructed the UC not to commit the murder around the time of the Indian Prime Minister’s official state visit to the United States, which was scheduled to begin on or about June 20, 2023.” On t June 18, 2023, masked gunmen shot Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar outside a Gurdwara in Canada’s British Columbia. US Justice Department said, “On or about June 19, 2023, the day after the Nijjar murder, Gupta told the UC that Nijjar “was also the target” and ‘we have so many targets.” Gupta added that, in light of Nijjar’s murder, there was “now no need to wait” on killing the Victim. On or about June 20, 2023, Yadav sent Gupta a news article about the victim and messaged Gupta, “[i]t’s [a] priority now’.” According to the statement, Yadav and Gupta of India have been charged with murder-for-hire, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison; conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison; and conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the US Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The DEA New York Division and the FBI New York Field Office’s Counterintelligence Division are carrying out an investigation into the case, with valuable assistance provided by the DEA Special Operations Division, DEA Vienna Country Office, FBI Prague Country Office, Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs, and Czech Republic’s National Drug Headquarters. Assistant US Attorneys Camille L Fletcher, Ashley C. Nicolas, and Alexander Li for the Southern District of New York are prosecuting the case with assistance from Trial Attorney Christopher Cook of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section and Trial Attorney AJ Dixon of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section. The US Justice Department noted, “An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.” The Ministry of External Affairs confirmed that the individual named in the US Justice Department’s indictment case in a foiled assassination plot against Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, was no longer an employee of the government of India. “The US State Department informed us that the individual in the Justice Department indictment is no longer employed by India. I confirm that he is no longer an employee of the Government of India,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a press conference. Gupta was extradited from the Czech Republic to the US to stand trial, where he pleaded ‘not guilty.’ India formed a high-level inquiry committee to address the security concerns highlighted by the US government. India MEA said that India takes such inputs seriously since they impinge on national security interests as well, and relevant departments were already examining the issue. The post DOJ announces charges against Vikash Yadav in foiled plot to assassinate Khalistani Pannun appeared first on Global Governance News- Asia's First Bilingual News portal for Global News and Updates. [ad_2] Source link