New Delhi: The Union government’s central registry of narcotics traffickers – which was launched in 2022 – has no record on Nikhil Gupta, the man named in the US government’s indictment on a plot to assassinate a Sikh American that was allegedly planned by an Indian government official. The intended victim of the plot was Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, head of the ‘Sikhs for Justice’ NGO in the US.While this particular Nikhil Gupta – who is reported to be facing criminal charges in Gujarat, and was offered the chance to have those charges dropped if the assassination went off as planned – was not on the list, Economic Times reports that four others with the same name figure in the registry. However, they are all under trial in other states, not Gujarat.“We have inquired about the person named Nikhil Gupta and the prima facie inquiry did not find any case against him after I confirmed with all the four commissionerates in Gujarat. All the DCPs (district commissioners of police) from the city confirmed that they did not know who Gupta was,” Gujarat’s director general of police Vikas Sahay told Economic Times.US federal prosecutors have filed “murder for hire” charges against Indian national Nikhil Gupta – a resident of India who had been the cutout, or go-between, that the Indian government official used to hire a “criminal associate”. The ‘criminal associate’ in turn introduced Gupta to a hitman.Unfortunately for Gupta and his alleged handlers in New Delhi, the ‘criminal associate’ turned out to be a “confidential source” of the US Drug Enforcement Agency while the ‘hitman’ he connected Gupta to was an undercover officer.The indictment also contains damaging information about the unnamed Indian official’s involvement in the June 18, 2023 assassination of Khalistani activist Hardeep Nijjar in Canada and is likely to add weight to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s charge that there were ‘credible allegations’ linking the Indian government to the killing.
