{"id":133080,"date":"2026-02-13T23:46:33","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T23:46:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/133080\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T23:46:33","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T23:46:33","slug":"indian-man-pleads-guilty-in-assassination-plot-against-prominent-sikh-separatist-leader-in-new-york-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/133080\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian man pleads guilty in assassination plot against prominent Sikh separatist leader in New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A man from India admitted Friday that he conspired to hire a hitman to assassinate a prominent Sikh separatist leader living in New York City, prompting a top federal prosecutor to warn anyone abroad against plotting to kill Americans in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur message to nefarious foreign actors should be clear: steer clear of the United States and our people,\u201d U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a release after Nikhil Gupta pleaded guilty to three conspiracy charges in Manhattan federal court.<\/p>\n

James C. Barnacle Jr., the head of New York\u2019s FBI office, said Gupta coordinated with an Indian government employee, who directed him to carry out the killing, \u201cfacilitating a foreign adversary\u2019s unlawful effort to silence a vocal critic of the Indian government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gupta, 54, told Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn that he was in India when he paid $15,000 online in 2023 to someone he thought could carry out the killing of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who is an American citizen. Gupta was unwittingly communicating, though, with an undercover law enforcement officer posing as a hitman.<\/p>\n

The guilty plea occurred in a courtroom packed with about two dozen Sikhs from across the United States and Canada who share Pannun\u2019s desire to win independence for Punjab, a state in northwest India, which they hope to someday rename the Democratic Republic of Khalistan.<\/p>\n

The men briefly chanted a victory slogan in the courtroom after the proceeding ended and then held a prayer service outside the courthouse, waving yellow flags that had \u201cKhalistan\u201d in blue ink printed across them. American flags were carried as well.<\/p>\n

Pannun, who advocates for the creation of the sovereign Sikh state and is considered a terrorist by the Indian government, said in a phone interview afterward that he planned to continue his activism \u201ceven if I have to face a bullet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a terrorist,\u201d he said, describing himself as a Sikh who as a human rights lawyer is campaigning to turn Punjab into a place where \u201call religions will have equal rights.\u201d He urged the U.S. to go after officials in India who directed Gupta.<\/p>\n

Gupta has been held without bail since he was extradited to the United States in June 2023, from the Czech Republic, where he was arrested in Prague. A plea agreement called for him to serve at least two decades in prison. Sentencing was set for May 29.<\/p>\n

According to court papers, Gupta suggested to the undercover officer with the Drug Enforcement Agency that he thought he was hiring to be a hitman that the June 2023 killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar outside a Sikh temple in British Columbia, Canada, was the work of the same individuals planning the assassination of Pannun.<\/p>\n

Gupta told the officer that Nijjar \u201cwas also the target\u201d and \u201cwe have so many targets\u201d as he instructed the officer to proceed with Pannun\u2019s killing now that Nijjar was dead, according to court papers.<\/p>\n

Pannun described Gupta as \u201cjust a foot soldier.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Indian government cannot shield itself behind this operational foot soldier because the command, the direction and the funds are authorized by the Indian government,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am ready to take India\u2019s bullet rather than take a step back and live like a slave. Working toward the independence of the Sikh state of Khalistan is my life\u2019s mission, until either I am killed or Punjab becomes an independent country,\u201d Pannun added.<\/p>\n

\t
\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A man from India admitted Friday that he conspired to hire a hitman to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":{"0":"post-133080","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-manhattan","9":"tag-manhattan-headlines","10":"tag-manhattan-news","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-nyc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}