OPERATION MESS-UP

A US COURT'S INDICTMENT OF A FORMER RAW AGENT ALLEGEDLY BEHIND THE PLOT TO ELIMINATE A KHALISTANI LEADER IS A NARRATIVE OF A BOTCHED OPERATION. ALSO AT STAKE IS THE FUTURE OF INDIA-US INTELLIGENCE COOPERATION

- Pradip R. Sagar

IN what is proving to be a major embarrassment for the Indian intelligence establishment, an officer once serving in one of its agencies has been caught with the proverbial smoking gun in the plot to kill the Khalistani separatist and Sikhs For Justice founder Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York in June 2023. A superseding indictment filed by the US Department of Justice (USDOJ) in a US District Court in New York on October 18 charged Vikash Yadav a.k.a. Vikas a.k.a. Amanat and his associate Nikhil Gupta a.k.a. Nick with murderfor-hire, conspiracy to commit murder and money laundering in the Pannun case. Yadav, a former officer of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), is said to have been working with RAW, or the Research and Analysis Wing, at the time. To make matters worse, the 18-page indictment draws a possible link between the plot to assassinate Pannun and the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, another Khalistani sympathiser, in Canada the same month.