The Justice Department of America has registered a case against Indian citizen Vikas Yadav for conspiring to murder for hire.
About six months ago, on April 29, a report published in the ‘Washington Post’ said, “While President Biden was welcoming Modi on the lawn of the White House, an officer of the Indian intelligence agency RAW was instructing a hired hit team to eliminate Gurpatwant Singh Pannu, a big critic of Modi in America.”
According to this report, Indian agent Vikram alias Vikas Yadav had forwarded Pannu’s New York address to the hit team.
The article published in the Washington Post said, “The operation targeting Pannu was approved by the then RAW chief Samant Goyal.”
According to the article, Yadav was a CRPF officer, so he lacked the training and skills that would have the ability to deceive the American counterintelligence network.
The Washington Post report further stated that Nikhil Gupta, the middleman used by RAW to kill Pannu, inadvertently gave the contract to a person who was an informant of the US government.
India’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson had described the report published in the Washington Post as ‘baseless and factless’.
A former special secretary of RAW said on the condition of anonymity, “Such operations sometimes take months and in some cases years to complete, but the top officials of RAW and the top people associated with national security wanted to finish it immediately. The possibility that the agency may have been under political pressure for this work cannot be ruled out.”
People who know Nikhil’s background say, “Nikhil Gupta had previously assisted RAW in operations in Afghanistan and other countries, but he was used for the first time in an operation in the West.”
Kulbhushan Jadhav’s case
But this is not the first time that a person has been arrested or deported abroad. There have been some such incidents before this as well.
A similar case came to light seven years ago, when Kulbhushan Jadhav was caught on the Pakistan-Iran border on charges of spying for India.
Jadhav, a former officer in the Indian Navy, is still in a Pakistani jail and all efforts to bring him back to India have failed so far.
Not only in the US and Canada, there have been many clashes between alleged RAW agents and domestic security agencies in Australia, Germany, and Britain as well.
In these countries, people alleged to be RAW spies have been arrested and deported.
Gary Shea, Bureau Chief of the Washington Post in India, said in an interview to ‘The Wire’, “For the last several decades, the Khalistani movement has been a major threat to Indian security in the eyes of the Indian administration and intelligence agencies abroad have often kept an eye on their activities. These activities of Indian officials have sometimes been disliked by the governments of these countries.”
‘RAW agents’ jailed in Germany
Former RAW officials, on the condition of anonymity, say, “In 2019, some Sikh people living in Germany were appointed as RAW agents. They were arrested and prosecuted by German security agencies. An Indian couple Manmohan and Kanwaljit were sentenced to jail and fine for spying on Khalistani and Kashmiri activists and passing information to RAW.”
German broadcasting service Deutsche Welle wrote in its report, “Manmohan started spying for RAW from January 2015. His wife Kanwaljit started supporting him in July 2017. RAW gave them 7,200 euros in exchange for their services. During the trial, both of them admitted that they had met their handling officers of RAW several times.”
Two ‘RAW agents’ expelled from Australia
In 2020-21, two alleged ‘RAW agents’ were also caught in Australia by the counter-intelligence agency there and they were asked to leave the country immediately.
Interestingly, this case had no connection with the Khalistan movement.
In those days, long articles were published in two major Australian publishers Sydney Morning Herald and ABC News, which said that “a large espionage network has been dismantled and those spies have been asked to leave the country.”
At that time, when Australia’s intelligence chief Mike Burgess made a statement about breaking the intelligence network, it was speculated that he was probably talking about Russia or China’s intelligence agency.
A report published in ABC News in April 2024 said that ‘India’s Modi government had set up a network of spies in Australia.
These people were accused of monitoring Indian people living in Australia, collecting information about Australia’s confidential defense projects and its business relations.
Accused of stalking a Khalistani activist in Britain
The Washington Post wrote in its report, “Even in 2014-15 when Samant Goel was the station chief of RAW in London, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency MI-5 had warned him that he was exceeding the limits of his role as station chief in London. At that time, British officials were even thinking of expelling him from the country. Indian agents were accused of stalking Khalistani leader Avtar Singh Khanda and also threatening him.”
According to the newspaper, after receiving the warning, Goel angrily said, “These people are posing a serious threat to Indian security and it is within our jurisdiction to deal with them.”
Goel had returned to Delhi from London and while working at high positions in RAW, he reached the post of its chief in 2019.
Khalistanis in Pakistan
On April 4, 2024, a report in the British newspaper Guardian based on interviews with Pakistani and Indian intelligence officials said, “RAW was involved in the targeted killings of people associated with the Khalistan movement in Pakistan.”
This was also strengthened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech during the election campaign in which he said, ‘Even our enemies know that we enter homes and kill.’
However, the Indian government has repeatedly said that ‘extra judicial killing’ has not been its policy.
The spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs has described the report published in the Washington Post as ‘baseless and factless’.
Indian officials have also raised questions on why the governments of the US, Canada, UK and Australia did not take any action against Khalistani activists like Pannu and Nijjar who were accused of inciting people to attack Indian missions.
Even in 1980, the Canadian government did not take any action against Khalistani activist Talwinder Singh Parmar despite complaints from India.
Parmar, the first president of the extremist organization Babbar Khalsa, was believed to be the mastermind behind the 1985 Air India Kanishka bombing that killed 329 people.
Parmar was killed in an encounter with the Punjab police in India in 1992.
