New Delhi: The US State Department last month served the Government of India with a federal court summons in a civil case filed by Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, designated as a terrorist by India’s Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
The State Department sent a diplomatic note to the Embassy of India in Washington D.C. on 9 October 2026, which was signed on 30 September 2026.
The US State Department confirmed on 28 October in a filing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York that a summons had been delivered to the Indian Embassy in Washington D.C.
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The lawsuit filed by Pannun names a number of Indian officials, including National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval and former chief of the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) Samant Goel.
Pannun, the legal counsel for Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), filed the lawsuit following revelations of an alleged plot involving Indian national Nikhil Gupta to kill him. The MHA had in 2019 declared SFJ an unlawful association under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
Gupta pled guilty to three counts in February 2026, including murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He was arrested in Prague in June 2023 and extradited to the US, as a part of an investigation into the alleged plot to kill Pannun.
The US State Department’s transmission of the note to the Indian Embassy in Washington is a procedural step. The State Department underlined that in transmitting the note, it does not indicate a position on the ongoing civil case.
The alleged plot to assassinate Pannun and the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, another Indian-designated terrorist in Canada in 2023, set off multiple diplomatic challenges for the Indian government.
India has consistently rejected any links between its officials and the alleged plots. In 2023, following the US investigation, the Indian government had set up a committee to inquire into the evidence shared by American investigators.
With Canada, however, New Delhi took a different position, as Ottawa has not shared any evidence linking Indian officials to the killing of Nijjar. Nevertheless, ties between India and Canada deteriorated sharply, with both countries expelling and withdrawing diplomats from their respective missions.
The US has maintained a law enforcement approach to the investigations behind the plot to kill Pannun. The main Indian-official allegedly linked to the plot, Vikash Yadavis a former R&AW junior officer.
The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has been able to release information alleging direct links between Yadav and Gupta in the plot to murder Pannun. According to the DEA, Yadav reached out to Gupta, to carry out the killing.
Yadav joined the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in 2008, before being inducted by the Cabinet Secretariat. Yadav was charged by the US Justice Department in October 2024.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
Source: theprint.in
