Front Burner - Alleged India-linked assassination plot deepens

Episode Date: December 5, 2023

Prosecutors in New York accuse an employee of the Indian government of conspiring to assassinate a member of the movement to create an independent Sikh state. The plot was foiled in the U.S., but the indictment sheds light on murder that was carried out in Surrey, B.C., in June. CBC’s Alex Panetta details what we learned from the indictment, and what it says about India’s alleged assassination plans in North America. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Damon Fairless. It started with a murder outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, B.C. this past June. Hundreds of community members and supporters of the Khalistan movement came together, all to commemorate the life of Hardeep Singh Nidger. Nidger was a prominent leader in the Sikh community and an

activist with the independence group, Sikhs for Justice, which advocates for the establishment of an independent Sikh state of Khalistan in India. Then in September, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made an astonishing claim that Canada had credible intelligence linking Indian government agents to Nidjar's killing. Over the past number of weeks, Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government

of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar. India denied the accusation. Canada and India expelled one another's diplomats, further straining an already tense relationship. A major development today in Canada's deteriorating relationship with India. As CBC News first reported, a large number of Canadian diplomats have left India over the last couple of days. No Canadian tourists are getting visas since India angrily suspended services after Canada accused the South Asian country of an extrajudicial killing. And then last week, prosecutors in New York unsealed an indictment against an alleged conspirator in a foiled plot to carry out another assassination.

This one also tied to the Indian government, also targeting a Sikh activist involved in the movement to create an independent Sikh state in Punjab. The indictment lays out in startling detail how a network tied to the Indian government was allegedly planning an assassination. CBC's Alex Panetta has been covering the story from our Washington bureau. CBC's Alex Panetta has been covering the story from our Washington Bureau. He joins me now to talk about this foiled assassination plot and what it tells us about the murder of Hardeep Singh Nidger here in Canada. Hey Alex, welcome back. Good to be here.

So, it's not often I read an indictment and feel like I'm reading kind of like a John Le Carre novel. It's a fascinating story and ultimately this assassination plot was foiled, but the plot itself and the plotters are really fascinating. So, I was hoping, first off, we could walk through who the people involved with are, starting with the alleged target. Who is he? He's unnamed in the indictment. What do we know about him?

Now, it's fascinating that we finally heard, after three months of basically crickets, after Prime Minister Trudeau dropped that bombshell, we've got a whole bunch of details about this alleged plot, including the name of another alleged target. His name's Gurpatwan Singh Pannon. He's a Canadian citizen and a U.S. citizen, a lawyer, lives in New York. He is a Sikh activist. According to the Indian government, he is an extremist, a dangerous one, who has made very cryptic and troubling comments about Air India. If you know the history of Sikh extremism, you'll know the story of Air India. It's been 38 years since the bombing of Air India, Flight 182.

The plane traveling from Montreal to London exploded off the Irish coast, killing all 329 people on board, 280 of them Canadian. But a new poll from the Angus... So the Indian government's view is he's a dangerous guy in the view of many others, including his supporters. He is an activist and was targeted for extrajudicial, extraterritorial assassination by the state of India. He wasn't actually named in the indictment. Right.

But a Financial Times story from last week includes some details that matches the details of this case in this unsealed indictment. Pannon himself has told us at CBC News that he was the target. So that's, you know, a fairly decent reason to believe that this was the target, this New York resident who's got citizenship in Canada and the U.S. And he's part of the Khalistan movement too, right, Tej? I guess to put a finer point on it, right? Exactly. That's right.

He's an activist in the view of the Indian government. He's more than an activist, but a dangerous one. He's also friends with Hrdi Nijer, who was killed in British Columbia, a close associate of his. Okay. Okay. So that's the, in this indictment, that's the target. Then there's the person who's indicted in this, Nikhil Gupta. What do we know about Nikhil Gupta is that he is allegedly, according to U.S. authorities, a drug dealer, a weapons trafficker as well. And that he faced criminal charges of some sort. It's not specified in the indictment in India. And that he was allegedly told sometime around May of this year, if you arrange the assassination of this guy in New York City, we'll make this criminal charge against you go away in India. We'll make it disappear. You'll never hear about

it again. Oh, in addition, we'll give you $100,000. So he's the broker. He's essentially the broker. There's also the guy who orders the hit and he and the indictments are referred to as CC1, which I think stands for co-conspirator one. He's a, an unnamed Indian senior field officer. What do we know about co-conspirator one? Yeah, we don't know a whole lot other than the fact that he's the most interesting person in this entire case, uh, because he's according to us authorities, an employee of the Indian

government. Um, we don't know what exactly he does, but there are a couple of clues. Uh, he's described as having held different roles in the government of India, including intelligence, security management, and that he's worked at some point for India's central reserve police force. We, uh, are told that he provided Gupta with the target's home address, the target's phone numbers, details of his daily routine, and that he allegedly met with Gupta.

And they spoke repeatedly, but they apparently also met in New Delhi. So it's probably hard to look into the shadows on this one, but we don't have any sense of why co-conspirator Juan ordered the hit or who his superiors were, do we? Well, we know the Indian government under Narendra Modi's spoken for years about taking a more aggressive and violent approach to eliminating

what they view as sick extremists. And, you know, what we're seeing in this case is definitely consistent with that. You know, even Gupta himself, this alleged drug dealer, speaks with glee and saying, I wish I could be participating myself in doing this. I'd love to kill these guys with my own hands. So, yeah, what we see here are members of the Hindu majority talking about eliminating six sepers. Okay, so right now we have Panu, who's the target in New York. We've got Nikhil Gupta, who is an Indian national who has been basically assigned as the guy to broker the hit on Panu.

And we've got this shadowy figure, CC1, co-conspirator one, an Indian national again, senior field officer of some sort. We don't know much about him. There's a couple other characters here too. So just briefly, let's go into them. There's a, there's someone who's referred to in the indictment as a confidential source. Uh, tell me about that person. Well, this is the person that essentially, uh, foils the plot. This confidential source would have been, according to this indictment, uh contact of Mr. Gupta's from the criminal underworld.

So he allegedly reached out to this source and said, we need to arrange this hit in New York City. Can you find me a killer? And what he doesn't know at the time is that this person allegedly is an informant to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. Right. And that's important because the final character I want to bring in is, is the person called the

UC, the undercover. So the, the so-called assassin who is actually a USDA agent, right? Exactly. So then this, this middleman allegedly reaches out to a USDA agent and says, uh, we, you know, this, this is what's going on and, and basically puts them in touch with Gupta, uh, allegedly, and you've got then, uh, somebody asking, uh, an official of the U S government to organize a hit on U S soil. And then they,

then law enforcement, uh, uh, operations kick in and they're watching everything. So no, we've got our players here. We've got our target. We've got Panu. We've got our broker Gupta. We've got CC1, our conspirator in India. We've got a confidential source in the U.S. who is linked to law enforcement in the U.S. And finally, our undercover agent who is posing as an assassin.

Tell me, how did this plot unfold? It's the spring of 2023, this year. It's a very important geopolitical moment. U.S.-China tensions are at a fever pitch. They're cutting each other off of trade and vital strategic goods. And the U.S. is looking to India as a strategic partner. And Narendra Modi is coming to Washington. And according to this indictment, at some point,

there's an exchange between the different conspirators and the Indian government employee allegedly tells Gupta, make this happen, make this killing happen as quickly as possible, but not while there's a high level Indian visit to the United States. Right. Which is, you know, he doesn't, it's not spelled out in the indictment, but it's pretty clear. They're talking about Modi's visit to Washington. That's right. And then, uh, there's a surprise twist and it involves Canada, right? Everything changes in June when, uh, Erdip Nijar is murdered in British Columbia. Uh, then all of a sudden that just completely changes the timeline, uh, for this, for this plot, because this idea of, of, of waiting, um, till after, uh, this high level political meeting after Modi's visit to Washington is, is redundant. It evaporates. Exactly. So there's, uh, apparently a message from Gupta, uh, speaking to, uh, this alleged informant for the DEA, his middleman saying, finish him, brother, finish him.

Don't take too much time. And they want it done immediately. So, so if I'm understanding, we've got, we've got, um, before Modi's visit in June to the U S we've got this, uh, this plots unfolding where we've got Gupta trying to broker a deal to murder Panu. There's an order that comes from the co-conspirator one in India saying, hey, let's not have this happen while there's this high-level Indian visit, presumably referring to Modi's visit. level Indian visit, presumably referring to Modi's visit. Then out of the sidelines here comes the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, BC, which suddenly kind of changes the tack in India. And we get Nikhil Gupta getting a text saying, hey, like, we've got to do this now. Is that right? Exactly. And according to this indictment, this Indian government employee specifically said the killing in Canada had accelerated the timetable for the assassination in New York.

He apparently texted one of the other conspirators in the case. It's a priority now. So what happens after that point? Once Gupta gets the text saying, hey, finish this, brother, get this done. Well, what happens? Walk me through that. Yeah. He sends his supposed contract killer,

a video of New Jersey body from British Columbia. I'm not sure exactly how they got the video. Exactly. That's a question. Good question. And he says, do it quickly. Uh, meaning do it in New York quickly. Uh, this thing's happened in Canada.

We need to move. And then, uh, everything goes wrong because for him, because he doesn't realize that he's been talking to an allegedly undercover agent, also an undercover informant. And he's arrested in the Czech Republic. After a flight there, he stopped and he's currently fighting extradition to the United States. And cash changed hands too, right? Well, yeah. Now we know the going rate apparently apparently, on one of these plots.

And it's allegedly $100,000. That's what Mr. Gupta would have been offered to arrange this killing. And we know that they negotiated some of the conditions of that cash. You know, the total amount, how much might come in advance. And there's actually a picture in the indictment of what's presented or it's described as $15,000, an advance on the payment, changing hands in a car in New York City. There's a photograph of a wad of $100 bills. So this plot unfolded from the spring of this last year, around May of this last year, to the end of June, roughly speaking. Hardip Singh Nijar was murdered

in Surrey, BC in mid-June, and this plot against Pannu's unfolding. Explain to me how these two cases are related. We see these exchanges happening between different people associated with this plot, saying there's a big target in Canada. We have three targets in Canada. A different job, a different crew did the job in Canada. So clearly these things are related. And then we see people talking about accelerating the job, doing it more quickly because of what had just happened in Canada. There's no need to wait anymore. You know, we see quotes like finish him, brother, finish him, brother. It's a priority now.

I'm going to go. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial

vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. So Alex, it's been a while since the RCMP opened up its investigation into the Niger case. What have we learned over the last little while about where things stand with that case? Frankly, very little. We haven't heard much since September. We, you know, my colleague Evan Dyer and I have reported that Canada believes it has a wealth

of intelligence, signals intelligence, human intelligence, that it's got the conversations of Indian diplomats in the Canadian case. But really nothing's happened that we can see. I mean, there have been no charges in Canada. We keep hearing that the RCMP might be on the precipice of something, but it doesn't happen. We've heard that someone else in Canada, Gurmeet Singh Tor, was issued a duty to warn document by the RCMP that he might also have been a target. But really, the speed with which the U.S. proceeded in this prosecution

has underscored to a certain extent the absence of similar charges in Canada. And Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBelon commented on this a few days ago and said, I have every confidence in the case of the ongoing murder investigation in British Columbia that the RCMP are doing the rigorous important work that we expect of them and we're gonna let them conclude their investigation with respect to the murder on a similar note Canada's foreign minister Melanie Jolie was asked last week about why US authorities managed to prevent a purported assassination but Canadian authorities were unable to.

So first, Katie, of course, I won't comment the work that is being done by our own law enforcement agencies for two reasons. The first one is I respect their independence. We're a rule of law country. What do we know about that? So what we think we know, it's kind of hard to speculate because this involves sensitive intelligence that's not really being divulged extensively, but based on what we can read in the U.S. indictment, based on what U.S. media are also reporting based on their own sources, what it looks like is U.S. authorities were already watching Nikhil Gupta, that they had a drug case open and, and they were using an informant and it just so happened that this informant was asked to arrange a murder in the middle of it. And according to this, according to the New York times, that the investigation abruptly shifted from a drug case to a, to a, uh, uh, uh, targeted, you know, political assassination case. And, you know, so it's partly resources,

the United States government having all these resources and undercover officers, but also partly luck if these accounts are accurate. So after Trudeau makes this claim back in September that Canada has credible intelligence linking Indian government agents to Hardeep Singh, nature's killing, there was a huge blowback, right? So Indians suspended visa services. Calling in the Canadian High Commissioner and announcing that it is expelling a senior

Canadian diplomat within the next five days. That's a tit-for-tat response to Ottawa's kicking out a top official from India. Things were really tense and Indian news coverage of Canada was not charitable, to say the least. So with these U.S. allegations, though, in this indictment, we've seen the Indian government say that it'll now undertake a high-level inquiry. So what do you think will come out of that inquiry? Well, you know, one of the most pertinent questions to ask when a public inquiry is launched is to see its terms of reference, to ask what people are looking for. It's kind of interesting that the Indian government has not published the terms of reference. As a matter of fact, uh, I was speaking with a colleague in India and asked, uh, whether this,

this inquiry would be public, whether the details would ever be made public. And I was told that an Indian, an Indian government asked, uh, Indian officials, this very question and was basically told off for asking the question. So, you know, based on what we've seen so far, the absence of, of, of details on what this

inquiry is going to entail, no terms of reference, uh, basically journalists getting brushed off when they ask very basic questions about it, uh, allow me to express my skepticism that this is going to look in every corner of the Indian government, right up to the highest levels of the Indian government to see whether they played a role in this assassination. We would have every right to be skeptical of that based on what we know so far. One of the things that came out after this indictment is Gopinath Singh Panna was saying that he felt that indictment, the one we've been talking about,

was actually about Modi, the Modi government. As you've pointed out, I mean, you were tweeting not too long ago that Modi had campaigned on the idea of extrajudicial, extraterritorial killings of state enemies. So, yeah, where this goes is anyone's guess, I guess. No, and Narendra Modi in 2014, Indian press reports, contemporaneous ones, talk about him saying we need to go after these people more aggressively, more violently.

And so, you know, those of us who've been talking to government officials in the last couple months about this case, my understanding, and we have to be careful because we don't want to sort of over-report what people aren't willing to say on the record, but my understanding is Prime Minister Modi hasn't explicitly denied these allegations in private. and so you put all that together. Now, the Indian government has now got an inquiry into something that, you know, and it's not willing to tell you how far it's willing to look. You know, it's going to raise some questions about whether there's going to be a line that investigators are not willing to cross in India. And so, yeah, clearly some of the targets of these assassinations or these would-be assassinations believe that there's high-level involvement in India. All right, Alex, thanks so much. Really appreciate it. Thank you. That's it for today. I'm Damon Fairless. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner. I'll talk to you tomorrow.