Former RAW officer Vikas Yadav arrested in US on charges of conspiring to murder Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannu, his lawyer has argued made a major accusation. Vikas Yadav was arrested by the US investigation agency FBI about ten months ago. Yadav was charged in the United States. Now, Vikas Yadav’s lawyer has issued a statement in this regard. He said Vikas Yadav was becoming a scapegoat in international politics.
In an exclusive interview with Aaj Tak, Yadav’s lawyers RK Handu and Aditya Choudhary said that the allegations against him have no factual basis and he is becoming a scapegoat in international politics.
The lawyer said Vikas Yadav was shocked to hear the allegations. Vikas Yadav came to know about the allegations through media reports. He claimed that Vikas Yadav had never left the country. He has never traveled abroad. The accusations against him have no basis in fact. This is a conspiracy against India and the Indian government.
In fact, the U.S. Department of Justice accused the former Indian intelligence officer of conspiring to murder Pannu in a failed attempt. Yadav’s accomplice Nikhil Gupta was earlier charged and extradited to the United States. Vikas Yadav is named CC-1 in the charge sheet.
Do you know who Vikas Yadav is?
In the U.S. indictment, investigators claimed that the defendants in Pannu’s case were directly linked to the murder of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Nijjar. CC1 (Vikas Yadav) sent a video of Nijjar’s body to Nikhil Gupta hours after the news broke that Nijjar was murdered outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, Canada on June 18. However, it is not clear who made the video and sent it to Yadav.
U.S. officials said Yadav was a former official with India’s intelligence agency RAW and used the pseudonym “Amanat” during the conspiracy. The FBI released his photo and said he was born in Pranapura, Haryana. In response to the incident, the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs clarified that the individuals named in the indictment no longer work for the Indian government.
What’s going on?
In November last year, the Financial Times claimed in a report that a plot to assassinate Pannu was hatched in the United States, but the plot was foiled. Pannu is a US citizen and India has declared him a terrorist. Since then, the U.S. Department of Justice has also filed a lawsuit in the New York District Court on this matter. In the case, an Indian citizen named Nikhil Gupta and an unidentified Indian government official were accused of planning to murder Pannu. Nikhil Gupta was arrested in the Czech Republic last June and extradited to the United States this year. Nikhil Gupta is currently imprisoned in a US prison.
