New Delhi: A United States district court has formally accepted the guilty plea of Nikhil Gupta, the Indian charged in the trans-national plot to kill Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.District Judge Victor Marrero has written in a short order that Gupta’s guilty plea, made before a United States Magistrate Judge on February 13, is accepted. Gupta had pleaded guilty to charges of murder, conspiracy, and money laundering. The US Department of Justice released a press statement that claimed Gupta “acted on the direction of an Indian government employee”.The judge noted that a transcript was made and given to the district court and “…upon review of that transcript, this Court has determined that the defendant entered the guilty plea knowingly and voluntarily and that there was a factual basis for the guilty plea.”The Indian government is yet to comment on Gupta’s guilty plea. As The Wire has noted, the case now sharpens diplomatic, strategic and political pressures on New Delhi in ways that will be harder to brush aside by the Modi government.The US department of justice’s case spells out Gupta’s association with former R&AW employee Vikash Yadav, who remains a wanted fugitive in the eyes of the US justice system. As per media reports, he remains in India.