U.S. arraignment asserts various Indian death plots across North America
the United States has charged an Indian national in connection to a stunning murder for higher plot the 15-page indictment reads like a movie script an unnamed Indian government official contacts an alleged Indian drug trafficker to orchestrate the assassination of a sick separatist in New York City that man in turn attempts to hire a hitman and in doing so tips off American law enforcement the CNBC's Katie Simpson is tracking this story for us in Washington Katie uh I I can't believe I just read those words what happened when the defendant in this case tried to hire that Hitman well let's go back to the month of May when all of this started according to the indictment an Indian national by the name of Nel Gupta was allegedly hired by an Indian government employee to carry out this assassination plot of a sick political activist in New York City in exchange for $100,000 authorities say Gupta needed assistance and unknowingly reached out to an informant and was eventually put in contact with an undercover agent posing as a Hitman Gupta allegedly shared details about the Target's address his daily routine and sent along instructions now originally Gupta allegedly said he wanted this to happen not close to the leadup to a major political event in the US which of course was the visit by Indian Prime Minister narandra Ro Modi uh Joe Biden held a a state dinner for him at the White House now gupto was allegedly worried that if anything happened in the immediate leadup to that it could lead to protests or cause unwanted attention uh and in some of those initial contacts Gupta allegedly said finish him brother finish him don't take too much time authorities continue to engage with Gupta until he was arrested Gupta traveled to the Czech Republic and he was taken into custody there and he is now facing two charges in this case Okay so the indictment suggests multiple alleged assassination plots tied to an IND Indian government official including the one here in Canada of herde Singh nider what more can you tell me about that the incident in New York City is part of this indictment allegedly is just part of a bigger broader part again this has not been proven in a court of law but this is according to the indictment the indictment makes direct links to the murder of Hardeep Singh nider it comes up multiple times along with references to other alleged assassination plots in the indictment it says quote Gupta stated that before the 29th of June we have to finish four jobs I.E that the the after that three in Canada and there are no there were four specific jobs one in the US and three in Canada there are no specific details in the indictment about what those plots may be but certainly it's raising a lot of questions and a lot of concerns Niner's name comes up multiple times in this indictment as I mentioned after the murder took place in British Columbia Gupta allegedly referenced it in his Communications with his cont contacts the indictment says quote later that evening just hours after the nider murder uh the one of the informant said gup or uh Gupta sent a video clip that showed niger's body bloody body slumped in his vehicle according to the indictment after the murder gapa wasn't concerned about the pipeline and then urg his contacts to act of course that did not happen and he was arrested okay uh there's a lot there and a lot of players but you spoke with the alleged Target of this New York plot ger patwan Singh pannon I believe what did he tell you about this well he is a sick activist leader based in New York City and of course the indictment references that an individual uh of that title as the target it doesn't explicitly name him uh but he says he was the target um he didn't seem phased At All by the threat in his life we had a conversation earlier this afternoon but I'm not going to stop our detor just because the Modi regime has sent Hitman to kill me I know my life is in danger and they wanted to kill me for running the sist Global kistan referendum campaign uh he says that he's more motivated by ever to Than Ever After reading the indictment to carry out his work and that will be the way he pushes forward okay Katie uh thank you so much that's the cbc's Katie Simpson in Washington DC uh for more on this story I'm joined here in Ottawa by ward elcock he is a former director of the Canadian Security and intelligence Service uh Mr elcock I I mean this is uh this is quite the thing uh in terms of what was spelled out here let's start with the big headline because this indictment and it's allegations let's say that up front the indictment suggest there were multiple assassination plots in North America tied to the Indian government including three in Canada what what are your thoughts on these allegations um I think from the beginning the acquisition about Nar I guess the question in the back of my mind is uh have there been have there been others and will there be others it sounds like they intended for there to be others uh if you read no there may already have been who knows exactly because there are a number of seek kill killings of SE in Canada which have uh Gone unsolved right so so this is obviously an alarming possible consequence of what we're reading about here but also if you read this 15-page indictment uh there's talk the the this man Gupta who has been charged is reportedly saying to his contacts who we now know we're working for law enforcement if you do this one right there will be more for you maybe once every month every two or three months how should we view the Modi government and India with with what has unfolded at least in in what the Prime Minister said and what the US court is alleging over the last couple of months well I think it becomes increasingly clear that that the government of India has been running a campaign to eliminate uh SE seem seik separatists or people they regard as sik extremists um uh and the Nar case clearly indicated that and clearly the government signaled that it had very strong intelligence from probably a large part from the Americans uh and this this really adds a lot of fuel to the fire uh the Americans must have had intelligence that these folks were coming uh you don't set up a a trap like that overnight you you don't just simply have somebody uh there who can be a u uh a potential assassin uh kind of on call so this is obviously fairly complicated operation the the FBI has run so so the chain of this there is the the the individual identified as CC1 in the indictment in India this is the Indian government official in the indictment who is not named but it's uh suggests that law enforcement has identified the individual the indictment describes him as a senior field officer with responsibility in Security Management and intelligence what do you read into that actually I thought the thing that was more interesting in the document was the fact that he is described as a as a former police officer which is actually if you go back to the individual ual who's expelled from Canada he was also a former police officer but seed to Raw uh so it would suggest that the Indians are that raw is indeed using foreign police officers as part of its operations and what is raw for people who don't know the Indian uh raw is the uh research and intelligence Wing which is the Indian Foreign Service foreign intelligence service okay so you suggest because this plot was foiled in the US while Mr nider was killed here in Canada they must have had some sort of intelligence that this was coming so this individual CC one the former police officer he contacts Mr Gupta according to the indictment this is the person who was charged with this who then contacts someone he believes can help him get a Hitman who turns out to be a confidential source for law enforcement who then leads them to the undercover yes agent is that the result of good intelligence or is that just a bit of luck that the person Mr GTA allegedly reached out to could was a had happened to be a confidence it could be luck luck does happen but it sounds to me like a a planned operation right okay I I want to go back to something Katie showed and this is one of the the graphics we put up this is paragraph six of the indictment and it's something that jumped out of the me it says later in the evening just hours after the nider murder CC1 who is is the official in India sent Gupta who is the man charged with the killing for hire in New York he was sent a video clip that showed Niner's body slumped in the vehicle about an hour later CC1 which is the official in India sent C to the street address of the victim's residence in New York city so what do you draw from that within hours of herp sing Niner being murder mured this official in India is sending pictures of the crime scene to the person he's allegedly hired to murder another sick activist in New York City I mean how would they get these pictures what do you what should we draw from from that little detail well it strongly suggests that the folks who who carried out the assassination took the pictures uh and sent proof home is frankly what what it would suggest to me so how do we view what the Prime Minister said in Parliament with details like this there do do do we think this was information that would have been shared with the Canadian government um the interesting that's an interesting question uh and I'm not sure we we're going to find out the answer to that very quickly uh it does sound from the timelines that the Americans were aware of this before we were before they made us before they made Canada aware of it which doesn't entirely surprise me because this would be a fairly embarrassing issue and they may have wanted to ensure maybe they intended to to to keep the Indians off the uh to to to to use it to try and get the Indians to back off um but then when when a ner killing happened they were they were forced into a position in which they provided the information to the Canadian government the the indictment uh also says that the Indian government official this CC1 character that that we put up there he made it clear to the people he was allegedly hiring to do this that the Target in New York couldn't be killed in the immediate leadup or during planned engagements between high level us and Indian government officials now we know from June 21 to 23 that Narendra Modi was in Washington DC went there for a state visit to meet with President Joe Biden the fact that diplomatic concerns and Mod's visit to to the White House was was factored into this does that suggest a high level of political involvement in this what like what can we draw from this in terms of it doesn't necessarily mean a high level of political involvement but it does indicate that somebody was sufficiently aware of what was happening uh that they wanted to make sure that there was no connection or could be no connection between this killing and and the vony visit that they wanted these things to be separate but that doesn't mean that that the the highest levels of the Indian government were aware of the assassination attempt well they're certainly aware of it now I mean in a response to today's indictment the Indian government said it's setting up a high level inquiry to investigate the allegations now Canada's been calling for cooperation on the murder of Mr nider and to varying levels of of frustration and success I mean when you look at this the idea of setting up a high level inquiry do you think the United States do you think Canada can put put any faith in a process like that uh one suspects that the Indians will now have to find their way out of out of a problem they have they clearly have been somewhat inept to say the least in in terms of the actions they've taken uh they now got to they now have to find a their way out their way out maybe an inquiry which which then points the fingers at a bunch of folks who were off the reservation um that's a solution that that one could possibly foresee but it's also possible that they just are going to try and bury it so just as a final point I mean what would you be watching for next what do you think Canada the US can do next at a diplomatic political or intelligence level to to try to move this to a to a resolution that really depends on the Indians um and it really depends on how how under how much pressure they feel I suspect because of the actions today they feel under considerable pressure it's a great deal different from having Canada complain to having both candidate and the United States complaint and for the Americans to have taken launched a essentially a prosecution um my guess is that that this will force the Indians to do something what that will actually be is A $64 million question still okay Ward elcock former director of the Canadian Security intelligence service thanks for your time always appreciate it not a pleasure a pleasure
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