Alleged Indian Assassination Plot What We Know The Charges Activist Named as Target Read the Indictment Why Would India Take the Risk?

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       An Alleged Plot’s Burning Question: Why Would India Take the Risk?

       After an indictment accuses an Indian official of ordering an assassination on U.S. soil, diplomats and experts debate how far up the chain the scheme went.

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       An indictment unsealed this week described a plot to kill a Sikh activist in New York, months after a Sikh leader was killed in Canada. Both called for the creation of a Sikh state. Credit...Jackie Dives for The New York Times

       By Mujib Mashal and Hari Kumar

       Reporting from New Delhi

       Nov. 30, 2023

       In page after page of fly-on-the-wall detail, the indictment unsealed in New York this week describes a chilling plot: A criminal operative, on orders from a government official in India, tried to arrange the killing of a Sikh American on U.S. soil.

       As the scheme unfolded, court documents said, it grew only more brazen. When a prominent Sikh was gunned down in Canada in June in what prosecutors call a related assassination, the operative was told to speed up in New York, not slow down, the indictment says. And he was ordered to proceed even as India’s prime minister was on a red-carpet visit to Washington.

       The plot was eventually foiled, the indictment says. But its damning account leaves open a burning question: Why would the Indian government take such a gamble?

       The Sikh secessionist movement targeted in the plot is a shadow of what it once was and poses no more than a minor threat to India’s national security, even if Indian officials see a new generation of Sikhs in the diaspora as more radicalized proponents of the cause. Pursuing a vocal American activist in the movement would seem a risk to the momentum in U.S.-India relations as New Delhi expands its trade and defense ties with Washington in unprecedented ways.

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       The United States’ intense courtship of India as a counter to China may give the Indian government the sense that there is little it could do to rupture ties. But many diplomats, former officials and analysts in New Delhi are looking at two other possible explanations for the plot: that it was either sanctioned from the top with an eye on India’s domestic political calendar, or was the work of a rogue government element seeking to fulfill the desire of political bosses.

       The U.S. reaction to the plot so far, in which officials have taken their concerns to India privately, suggests it may be just a wrinkle in the relationship. That measured response, according to some diplomats in New Delhi, is a sign that U.S. officials could have information to suggest that the plot did not go far up the chain in India.

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       Mujib Mashal is the South Asia bureau chief for The Times, helping to lead coverage of India and the diverse region around it, including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan. More about Mujib Mashal

       Hari Kumar is a reporter in the New Delhi bureau. He joined The Times in 1997. More about Hari Kumar

       A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 1, 2023, Section A, Page 19 of the New York edition with the headline: Regarding Alleged Plot, Experts Wonder Why India Would Take Risk? . Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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