Can India’s security be entrusted to a government which allows rogue operatives within its intelligence agencies to plan and execute clandestine assassinations in friendly countries?
This is a question voters are bound to ask with a general election barely weeks away, especially since a key plank on which Narendra Modi is seeking a third term as prime minister is that he runs a stable government that is committed to ensuring India’s security and has succeeded in enhancing the country’s international standing like no predecessor has done before.
All of these claims stood compromised when India’s principal strategic partner, the United States, formally indicted an Indian national last year for conspiring with known (but unnamed) Indian government officials to murder a US citizen, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, in New York. Pannun is an active advocate of ‘Khalistan’ and has been designated a terrorist by the Government of India. The only problem is that neither Indian nor US law allows for his extra-judicial killing.
Under pressure from Washington to ‘investigate’ the India-end of a plot that has seen the arrest of the alleged middleman Nikhil Gupta in Prague, the Modi government has – according to a Bloomberg report – apparently told the US that Pannun was targeted by a ‘rogue’ operative operating without official sanction.
Leaving aside the sense of subcontinental deja vu – the ‘rogue’ theory has been used before by Pakistan when cornered by evidence of official complicity in unsavoury acts – is this explanation plausible?
To refresh our memory, the November 29, 2023 US indictment of Gupta for plotting the killing of Pannun referred to his handler as ‘CC1’ and described him in the following manner:
“CC-1 is an Indian government agency employee who has variously described himself as a “Senior Field Officer” with responsibilities in “Security Management” and “Intelligence,” and who also has referenced previously serving in India’s Central Reserve Police Force and receiving “officer[] training” in “battle craft” and “weapons.” CC-1 directed the assassination plot from India.”
We know from an intra-government recruitment notice issued by the Cabinet Secretariat that a ‘Senior Field Officer’ is a senior position within the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency which functions within the Cabinet Secretariat. The CabSec’s requirements note that “suitable/eligible officers” should “have keen interest in security issues and international affairs especially in the field of gathering intelligence and security management”.
Also read: From Nijjar to Pannun, Modi Government’s Recklessness is Undermining National Interest
Assuming the, US government did its homework before unsealing its indictment, this means CC1 was a senior operative of the R&AW.
Assuming he had gone rogue, it is clear that he had to have been part of a band of rogue operatives since he shared footage of the bullet-ridden corpse of another Khalistan activist, Hardeep Nijjar, that had been taken (presumably by the assassins) right after he was shot and killed on June 18, 2023. Since the Canadians expelled the R&AW station chief in Ottawa on the basis of intelligence received from a ‘Five Eyes’ partner (presumably the US), this means there is credible information linking CC1 to a wider network of operatives linked to R&AW.
If Khalistani separatists in North America – who have been officially designated as terrorists by the Government of India – were really being targeted for elimination by rogue elements within R&AW, a responsible government would surely have moved swiftly to contain the damage. Even assuming the National Security Adviser was in the dark about the Pannun plot, we know that a senior CIA official alerted him to it in August 2023. If the killing of Nijjar itself did not prompt an urgent internal investigation, the plot to kill Pannun ought to have rung alarm bells. Doval would have asked Samant Goel if these hits were being done “by one of ours”. And if the answer was ‘no’ then anyone tasked with safeguarding national security would surely want to find out who was behind these plots since the list of potential culprits might include a hostile foreign agency out to create a ‘false flag’ debacle for India. However, India set up its probe only at the end of November, more than three months after the US first shared its concerns on the Pannun case with Doval.
Had such a probe been ordered and conducted vigorously in June, after Nijjar was killed, or in August, the rogue elements would have been identified and the country spared the sort of diplomatic embarrassment it is now being forced to deal with.
The bottom line with the ‘rogue’ theory, then, is this: The fact that rogue operatives can pull stunts like this for months without being discovered and punished tells us what a mess the Modi government has made of national security management. Even now, there is no evidence that the government is seeking to punish the officials whose ‘rogue’ actions have harmed India’s relations with friendly countries.
The alternative scenario, of course, is that the Modi government is not telling the truth. Thus compounding the original sin of ordering the assassination of citizens of friendly countries on their soil with a bogus probe aimed at a cover up. There may be sections of the US administration who are happy to play along – especially the Pentagon – but there are bound to be prosecutors and legislators who think differently. Either way, it will find it hard to control the narrative and limit the damage being done to India.
When Nikhil Gupta is extradited and put on the stand, he may be tempted to strike a deal in which he reveals information about his collaborators in exchange for a reduced sentence. The indictment itself speaks of CC1’s boss and of a video conference in which officials in ‘business attire’ appear to be part of the conspiracy. Will they also be part of the gallery of rogues India offers up to buy peace with the US?
Any which way this problem is sliced and diced, the fact is that the Modi government’s recklessness has compromised India’s national security interests and global standing.
This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
