Indian government employee charged in foiled murder-for-hire plot in NYC
The Justice Department announced criminal charges Thursday against an Indian government employee who specialized in intelligence in connection with a foiled plot to kill a Sikh separatist leader living in New York City.Vikash Yadav, 39, faces murder-for-hire charges in a planned killing that prosecutors first disclosed last year and have said was meant to precede a string of other politically motivated murders in the United States and Canada.Yadav remains at large, but in charging him and releasing his name, the Biden administration sought to call out the Indian government for criminal activity that has emerged as a significant point of tension between India and the West over the last year — culminating this week with a diplomatic flare-up with Canada and the expulsion of diplomats.“The FBI will not tolerate acts of violence or other efforts to retaliate against those residing in the US for exercising their constitutionally protected rights,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement.The criminal case against Yadav was announced the same week as two members of an Indian inquiry committee investigating the plot were in Washington to meet with US officials about the investigation.“They did inform us that the individual who was named in the Justice Department indictment is no longer an employee of the Indian government,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters before the case against Yadav was unsealed.“We are satisfied with cooperation.
It continues to be an ongoing process.On Monday, Canada said it had identified India’s top diplomat in the country as a person of interest in the assassination of a Sikh activist there and expelled him and five other diplomats.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and police officials went public this week with allegations that Indian diplomats were targeting Sikh separatists in Canada by sharing information about them with their government back home.They said top Indian officials were then passing ...