LONDON/NEW YORK: New York-based lawyer and general counsel of the pro-Khalistan group Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, through his lawyers, has filed a civil suit in the US Federal District Court against the Government of India and senior officials of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) for their “unprecedented attempt to assassinate an American citizen on American soil”.
The announcement of the legal action was made at a global press conference attended by Khalistani leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun and his attorneys Matthew Borden, partner and co-founder of BraunHagey and Borden LLP and Richard Rogers, partner at Global Diligence LLP. The legal action was filed in the United States District Court in New York against the Indian government and senior officials of the Indian intelligence agency, namely Ajit Doval, Samant Goel, Vikram Yadav and Nikhil Gupta.
The complaint alleges that senior officials of India's spy agency RAW, which reports directly to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, hired arms dealer and RAW agent Nikhil Gupta to hire assassins in the United States to kill Pannun in New York. This plan was foiled when the hitmen Gupta hired turned out to be undercover federal agents.
According to the complaint, the plot was part of a broader effort to kill prominent Sikh activists who advocate for the right to self-determination of the Sikh people in India's Punjab region, speak out critically against the persecution of religious minorities and condemn human rights abuses by Prime Minister Modi's regime.
The assassination of lawyer Pannun was supposed to happen around the same time as the (successful) assassination of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a close ally of Pannun and head of the Canadian chapter of the Khalistan Referendum, in Canada on June 18, 2023.
The US Justice Department has charged Gupta in New York with “murder for hire” over the plot against Pannun, while Canada has recently arrested and charged four Indian nationals with first-degree murder for killing Nijjar.
“The Indian government denies responsibility” [for the hit it ordered on Pannun]“the complaint alleges, even as Prime Minister Modi boasted at a political rally that “even the enemies of India know that this is Modi, this is the new India, he can come into your house and kill you.”
“This case is aimed at holding India accountable for its crime of transnational repression against pro-Khalistan Sikhs. The Government of India cannot stop the Khalistan referendum through threats and intimidation. I will continue to organise the global Khalistan referendum to vote for the liberation of Punjab from India. And if the price of independence is death, I am ready to face it. India tried to kill me for organising the Khalistan referendum. I am taking legal action to hold the Modi government and RAW officials accountable for their involvement in transnational terrorism against Sikhs at home and abroad,” Pannun said while filing her suit.
“In this country we have freedom of speech and the rule of law. When a foreign government seeks to export tyranny and murder, our citizens have the right to seek redress in the courts,” said Pannun's attorney, Matthew Borden. “Our goal is to hold all those involved in this conspiracy accountable.”
“I am aware, Modi, that you are still trying to kill me and that you are trying to hire agents to eliminate me, but remember that I will not stop at any cost and I will not make any concessions,” he said.
According to Richard J. Rogers, Pannun’s international lawyer: “India has been trying for years to silence Pannun, first by abusing Interpol’s red notice system by fabricating evidence against him, and now by abusing its friendship with the United States by hiring assassins to kill him. Pannun is leading the campaign for the Khalistan referendum. It is a peaceful campaign and does not involve terrorism, weapons or violence. India has shown no evidence that Pannun has broken the law. India’s assassination plot is a worrying trend, targeting Sikhs.”
The case states that in November 2023, the US Department of Justice filed an indictment against an Indian national, Gupta, on charges of committing and conspiring to commit a “contract murder” of an American citizen, Pannun, on US soil. According to the US Department of Justice indictment, acting on behalf of Indian government officials, Gupta attempted to orchestrate the murder of lawyer Pannun for his political views on Khalistan and his activism, in particular, the promotion of the global referendum on Khalistan.
The complaint says it was RAW agent Gupta who hired the assassins to kill Pannun, a Canadian and US citizen, at the same time as Nijjar was being killed in Canada, but these efforts were overseen by accused Yadav, a senior RAW officer from India, and approved by accused Goel, the RAW chief, and accused Doval (the national security adviser), who reported directly to Modi.
The suit reads: “RAW assassins killed Nijjar in Canada on June 18, 2023, but the plan to assassinate Pannun unraveled when the hitmen India tried to hire turned out to be undercover U.S. law enforcement agents. The U.S. captured and charged Gupta. But the Government of India denies responsibility. Pannun brings this action to hold the Government of India, Doval, Goel, Yadav, and Gupta accountable for their unprecedented attempt to assassinate an American citizen on U.S. soil.
“The efforts of the accused to kill Pannun are part of a broader policy by successive Indian governments to violently suppress dissent that has resulted in the attack and massacre of pilgrims at the holiest Sikh shrine, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, by the Indian Army in June 1984; the ‘Sikh Genocide’ in November 1984; arbitrary arrests, torture, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings of Sikhs; misuse and manipulation of the criminal justice system; use of colonial-era ‘sedition laws’; use of the draconian ‘Unlawful Activities Prevention Act’ (UAPA) and issuance of INTERPOL Red Notices based on trumped-up charges, including against Pannun.”
The suit says India’s investigation confirmed that a “rogue operative” was solely responsible for attacking India “but this investigation was a sham” and “a recent Washington Post investigation revealed that the assassination plot was implemented by Yadav while working at RAW and directed from within the Indian intelligence service.”
The New York Court has jurisdiction over the claims against Doval, Goel, Yadav, and Gupta pursuant to 28 USC § 1332(a) and the Court has jurisdiction over the claims against the Government of India pursuant to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 USC § 1605.
“At this time, Pannun has not named Narendra Modi as a defendant due to the immunity he currently enjoys under U.S. and international law as the head of a foreign sovereign government. However, Pannun reserves the right to amend the complaint to include Narendra Modi as a defendant if his status as head of state changes during the course of these proceedings,” the complaint says.
The suit says India has committed genocide of Sikhs at home but has not limited its attempt to silence Sikh activism to its own borders; India has turned diplomatic missions in foreign countries into spy networks for its government; India has sent Indian consular officials to Sikh gurdwaras (temples) in the United States to recruit members of the community to spy on fellow Americans who support the Khalistan referendum.
“These consular officials have attempted to intimidate members of the Sikh community by warning them that their relatives in India will face severe consequences if they support the referendum. Consular officials abroad have also denied official documents (such as birth or death certificates) to supporters of the Khalistan referendum. India has also attempted to use INTERPOL’s Red Notice system to force many Sikh activists abroad to return to India for prosecution.”
The complaint reads: “Unable to force Pannun and other activists to return to India through the INTERPOL system, India has resorted to orchestrating the killing of Sikhs in North America and other foreign countries. A recent article in the Guardian newspaper has revealed that India has now resorted to extrajudicial killings as a means of suppressing dissent. The government agency responsible for these killings is RAW. The Guardian’s investigation, based on intelligence documents provided by intelligence officials in both India and Pakistan, has linked RAW to more than 20 killings outside India since 2020.”
The complaint lists the cause of action as: Defendants intentionally caused Pannun to become concerned that Defendants or their co-conspirators were about to cause harmful or offensive bodily contact to Pannun and, as a result of Defendants' conduct, Pannun suffered damages in an amount to be proven at trial; Defendants intentionally attempted and are attempting to cause Pannun extreme emotional distress and Defendants behaved in a manner so shocking and outrageous as to exceed all reasonable bounds of decency; and as a direct result of Defendants' conduct, Pannun has suffered severe emotional distress.
