James Manor 
The alleged plot to murder a United States citizen, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, on US soil is a much more serious matter than India’s government and some commentators have claimed. This becomes clear from a careful reading of the US Justice Department’s criminal indictment. The crucial details are the dates listed in that document.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been accorded a state visit – the highest honour that the Americans can confer on a foreign leader. That brought him to the US between June 21 and 23, 2023. The key day was the 22nd.
It began with a meeting in the Oval Office with President Joe Biden. Modi then addressed a joint session of the United States Congress, and that evening a glittering state dinner in his honour was held at the White House.
Where the indictment speaks of “engagements” between “high-level US and Indian government officials”, this is clearly a reference to Modi’s state visit. The officials in India whom the indictment states were allegedly guiding the assassination plot through ‘Nick’ at first urged that no action be taken during these “engagements”.
But then for some reason that instruction was changed. The plot’s authors in Delhi, according to the indictment, were eventually prepared for the killing to take place during Modi’s visit.
On June 19, Nikhil Gupta – the alleged organiser of the murder – told the person he thought was a hit man (who was actually a US government agent operating under cover) that in light of the killing the previous day of a Sikh secessionist in Canada, there was “now no need to wait” to assassinate Pannun in New York.
On June 20t, Gupta’s alleged handlers in India told him that the murder of Pannun was now a “priority”. On that day, Gupta passed on the message: “we got the go-ahead to go anytime, even today, tomorrow, as early as possible”.
“Tomorrow” was June 21, the day that Modi arrived in the US.
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On June 22, the day of the prime minister’s address to Congress and the state dinner, Gupta’s alleged contact in New Delhi told him that he had received a message from the “boss”, and that if the hit man could confim that the victim was at home, “it will be a go ahead from us”.
It is astonishing that this assassination could have been contemplated on the day that Modi addressed the US Congress and was being honoured at a state dinner.
The indictment alleges that the “go ahead” came from Gupta’s superiors in India. The clear implication is that he was not a lone, rogue actor.
The indictment speaks of a video meeting allegedly linked to the plot in a conference room in New Delhi with “approximately three other men in the room who were dressed in business attire”.
The clear implication is that they were officials, possibly in an intelligence or security agency. They appear to have had their own operatives in the US.
The messages to Gupta – noted in the indictment – indicate that his handlers for this operation had informants on the ground who were providing him with additional information on the intended victim.
The indictment also includes taped references by Gupta and his handler, CC-1, in which the latter refers to the “boss”:
“At one point, on or about June 22, 2023, CC-1 messaged GUPTA that the Victim “is somewhere else,” that “[h]e is not at home,” and that CC-1 “got the message from boss.”
The boss’s identity is not revealed in the indictment. We do not know if the Americans – who know the identity of CC-1, Gupta’s immediate contact in India – are aware of who the ‘boss’ is. But the evidence in the indictment suggests that the “boss” is likely to have been a senior official in India’s security establishment.
Given the extremely over-centralised nature of the Modi government, it seems unlikely that this murder plot could have been planned without the knowledge of individuals very close to the prime minister.
This could create excruciating problems for the Indian authorities. They may need to consider how to treat a leading figure in the security services, and possibly even a senior political leader – with a national election looming.
Given the supposed importance to New Delhi of US-Indian relations, it is remarkable that a murder of an American citizen on US soil could have been contemplated at all – and that, as the indictment alleges with supporting evidence, other victims could also have been intended.
But the fact that this attack on Pannun could have occurred during Modi’s state visit to the US borders on political insanity.
The Biden government has so far been willing to overlook abundant evidence supplied to it of numerous startling outrages by the Modi government and its allies within India. These include attacks on the media which persuaded Reporters Without Borders to identify Modi as a “predator” of media freedom, and repressive actions against civil society which even targeted two Nobel Peace Prize winners: Amnesty International and Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity.
Given Biden’s apparent indifference to these issues, Indian leaders appear, astoundingly, to have believed that they could also get away with a murder of an American on US soil.
They were mistaken. This is a deeply serious matter.
James Manor is emeritus professor of commonwealth studies in the School of Advanced Study, University of London.