Man Pleads Guilty in Murder Plot U.S. Says Is Tied to Indian Government

Nikhil Gupta was accused of plotting to assassinate a U.S. citizen. The case against him echoed a similar scheme that resulted in the killing a Sikh cleric in Canada.

An Indian man pleaded guilty on Friday to orchestrating a failed assassination plot against a Sikh separatist in New York, a conviction tied to what officials in Canada and the United States say is a campaign by the Indian government to kill dissidents.

Nikhil Gupta, 54, faces up to 40 years in prison for his role in trying to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a lawyer with Sikhs for Justice, an advocacy group. Mr. Pannun is a U.S. citizen and a proponent of independence for the northern Indian state of Punjab.

Mr. Gupta, who entered his plea to murder for hire and other charges in federal court in Manhattan, is scheduled to be sentenced on May 29. The Indian government has rejected accusations that it was involved in the plot.

The indictment against Mr. Gupta outlined a brazen scheme in which he was recruited in May 2023 by an Indian government official, Vikash Yadav, to arrange the killing of Mr. Pannun.

Officials in the United States and Canada have said that the Indian government has engaged in a global campaign to silence Sikh separatists, creating diplomatic tensions amid attempts by both nations to deepen ties with Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister. Perhaps the most fraught moment occurred in 2023 when a prominent Sikh cleric was murdered in Canada.

“Our message to all nefarious foreign actors should be clear: Steer clear of the United States and our people,” Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement.

Prosecutors say Mr. Gupta was involved in the plot in June 2023, as President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was preparing to host Mr. Modi for a state dinner at the White House. The pomp of the event was aimed at wooing the Indian leader away from China and Russia.

Mr. Biden did not know at the time of the dinner that, according to prosecutors, an Indian official had just approved the assassination plot on U.S. soil. Mr. Gupta was arrested and detained in the Czech Republic days after the state dinner, and was brought to the United States in 2024 to face prosecution.

U.S. officials have said there is no evidence that Mr. Modi knew about the plot. Both Mr. Biden and President Trump have avoided addressing the case in public.

By contrast, Canadian officials, including Justin Trudeau, the former prime minister, touched off a diplomatic fight when they publicly blamed India for the killing of the cleric, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, outside a Sikh temple in British Columbia.

Indian nationals were arrested and charged in connection with the killing, and Mr. Trudeau blamed the Indian government, inflaming tensions and leading each country to expel the other’s diplomats.

U.S. intelligence agencies provided the Canadian government with context that, Western allied officials said, helped it conclude that India was involved in the murder. Canadian officials also gathered information, including intercepted communications of Indian diplomats in Canada, that shed light on the plot.

While the Indian government has claimed that Sikhs in Canada, a politically influential group, pose a national security threat to India, there is little support in Punjab for the secessionist cause. Violence tied to the movement, which Indian officials have cited, peaked decades ago.

In Mr. Gupta’s case, prosecutors have said that Mr. Yadav worked for India’s Cabinet Secretariat, which houses the country’s foreign intelligence service and is a part of the prime minister’s office, when he hired Mr. Gupta.

Mr. Yadav has also been indicted in federal court in Manhattan on charges of murder for hire and two conspiracy counts. Prosecutors have said he remains at large.

At Mr. Yadav’s direction, an indictment says, Mr. Gupta contacted a man to hire someone to carry out the killing in New York. The man, a federal informant, introduced Mr. Gupta to a second person who presented himself as a hit man but who was actually an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration officer.

In May 2023, the indictment added, Mr. Yadav sent Mr. Gupta an encrypted message saying he had a “target in New York.”

Soon after that, according to prosecutors, Mr. Gupta engaged in a series of electronic and recorded communications with the informant and the undercover agent in which they discussed the logistics and price of the murder.

At one point, prosecutors said, Mr. Gupta stated that the target of the plot was a lawyer and suggested that the gunman could lure Mr. Pannun into a place where he would be vulnerable by pretending to need legal advice.

An indictment said that on June 18, 2023, the day Mr. Nijjar was killed in Canada, Mr. Yadav sent Mr. Gupta a video clip showing the victim slumped in a vehicle. Mr. Gupta, according to the indictment, forwarded the video to the informant and the undercover agent. Later that day, prosecutors said, Mr. Yadav also sent Mr. Gupta the address of Mr. Pannun’s residence in New York City.

Mr. Gupta, speaking in court briefly on Friday, told Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn that in spring 2023, he had agreed with another individual “to murder a person in the United States.” He also said he had paid another person $15,000 as part of the plot.

Mr. Gupta’s lawyer, David Touger, declined to comment after the hearing.

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