R&AW officer was involved in alleged plot to kill Sikh separatist, claims ‘The Washington Post’

A Research and Analysis Wing officer named Vikram Yadav was involved in an alleged plot to assassinate Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun and in the killing of another Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, The Washington Post reported on Monday.

This is the first time that allegations have emerged about the identity and affiliation of an individual from within India’s foreign intelligence agency in Pannun’s case.

The report also cited assessments of American intelligence agencies that the operation against Pannun had been cleared by Samant Goel, then the chief of India’s foreign intelligence agency. The article was based on interviews with three dozen current and former unidentified senior officials in the United States, India, Canada, Britain, Germany and Australia.

The United States’ spy agencies also “more tentatively assessed” that India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval was likely to have known about the plans of the Research and Analysis Wing, according to The Washington Post. However, the newspaper quoted unidentified officials as saying that “no smoking gun proof” had emerged.

Officers at the United States’ Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the country’s principal federal law enforcement agency, had reportedly sought to prosecute Yadav. However, an indictment that became public in November referred to Yadav only as an unidentified co-conspirator “CC-1” and left out any...

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