The case concerns a murder-for-hire conspiracy involving two defendants, Vikash Yadav and Nikhil Gupta, who were allegedly plotting to assassinate a US-based attorney and activist of Indian origin Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.

The activist, critical of the Indian government, advocates for the secession of Punjab to form an independent Sikh state, Khalistan. He is a US and Canadian citizen who lives in New York.

Yadav, reportedly an Indian intelligence officer working for the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), and Gupta, involved in narcotics and weapons trafficking, coordinated the plot from India starting in May 2023.

Yadav and Gupta recruited a supposed criminal associate, who was actually a confidential informant for US law enforcement, to connect with an undercover officer posing as a hitman. Yadav and Gupta agreed to pay $100,000 for the assassination, and in June 2023, they transferred an advance payment of $15,000 in cash in Manhattan to initiate the operation.

The plot escalated following the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, an associate of the targeted victim, outside a Sikh temple in Canada on June 18, 2023. The defendants urged that the assassination in New York be executed quickly, initially avoiding the date of Indian Prime Minister Modi’s visit to the US but later giving full clearance for the hit after Nijjar’s murder.

Gupta was arrested in the Czech Republic on June 30, 2023, at the request of US authorities and extradited to the United States. The indictment charges both defendants with murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, and money laundering related to the financial transactions involved in the plot. The prosecution seeks forfeiture of any property connected to the scheme.

The US government successfully thwarted the assassination plot, relying on surveillance, undercover operations, and strategic arrests.