Indian official charged in foiled New York murder plot
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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Federal prosecutors charged an employee of India’s intelligence service with allegedly directing an audacious plot to kill a vocal Sikh activist in New York, an escalation in a long-running investigation that has threatened a rift in the U.S.-India alliance. Vikash Yadav, 39, a now-former employee of India’s foreign intelligence service, faces murder-for-hire charges in connection with the alleged plot that was first revealed last year.
An indictment unsealed Thursday by the U.S. Justice Department says Yadav, who remains at large, recruited another man to orchestrate the planned killing of the Sikh activist. The new indictment comes after a week of developments that renewed tension between New Delhi and the West over the alleged targeting of Sikh separatists.
On Monday, the Canadian government said it expelled six Indian diplomats, including India’s top official in the country, citing allegations that the officials gathered intelligence about Sikh separatists who were then targeted for violence. India responded the same day by expelling six Canadian diplomats and called Ottawa’s allegations “preposterous." Those expulsions were the latest flare-up in a diplomatic dispute that began when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in Parliament last year that Ottawa was pursuing “credible allegations" that agents of the Indian government were involved in killing Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh activist in Surrey, British Columbia, in June 2023. Then on Tuesday, members of an India-based committee investigating the alleged New York plot briefed U.S.
officials about developments in their inquiry. A State Department spokesman said Indian and U.S. officials updated each other on their
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