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An Indian man charged with orchestrating an unsuccessful Indian government-backed plot to kill B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in New York City pleaded guilty on Friday to three criminal charges, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan said.
Nikhil Gupta, 54, pleaded guilty to murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carry a maximum combined sentence of 40 years in prison, the spokesperson said.
Gupta entered his plea before U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn in Manhattan federal court.
Lawyers for Gupta were not immediately available for comment. Gupta has been jailed in Brooklyn since his June 2024 extradition to the United States from the Czech Republic, where he had been arrested a year earlier. He had pleaded not guilty immediately after his extradition.
U.S. prosecutors accused Gupta of plotting with an Indian government official to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a U.S. resident and dual U.S.-Canadian citizen who advocated for a sovereign Sikh state in northern India.
Months after the high-profile killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar triggered a diplomatic rift between Canada and India, a newly unsealed U.S. indictment alleges American authorities managed to stop a plot to assassinate multiple Sikh nationalists in North America — including three in Canada.
India’s government has dissociated itself from any plot against Pannun, saying it was against government policy.
The discovery of alleged assassination plots against Sikh separatists in the U.S. and Canada has tested relations with India, which has also denied involvement in such plots.
A court document, made public in 2023, laid out the U.S. prosecutors’ case against Gupta.
The indictment landed months after then-prime minister Justin Trudeau shocked the House of Commons by accusing India of being behind the killing of Nijjar.