US authorities charge Indian national in Pannun murder-for-hire plot

India says the individual is no longer an employee of the government

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A former Indian government official has been charged by the US authorities for his alleged role in a foiled plot to assassinate Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on American soil around the state visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Vikas Yadav, 39, was employed by the Cabinet Secretariat, which houses India's foreign intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the federal prosecutors claimed on Thursday in an indictment filed in a US court in New York.

Yadav faces murder-for-hire and money laundering charges in connection with his role in directing a foiled plot to kill Pannun.

He "remains at large", the Department of Justice said. Yadav had been identified only as "CC-1" (co-conspirator) in the first indictment. On Thursday in New Delhi, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, responding to a query on the person identified in the indictment of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) in connection with the case, confirmed that the person is "no longer an employee of the government of India". His co-conspirator Nikhil Gupta was arrested in the Czech Republic last year and is languishing in a US jail after extradition.