NEW YORK/LONDON: In the latest development in the Government of India’s attempt to assassinate Khalistan Referendum activist and lawyer Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York, the Indian national Nikhil Gupta, who tried to hire the US undercover agent, has been served with summons in a civil lawsuit.
Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Gupta has 21 days from the date of service to respond to the complaint in the civil case.
“We are glad to start the clock on Gupta,” said Pannun’s attorney, Mathew Borden, of BraunHagey and Borden, LLP. “It is only a matter of time before the truth will come out and justice will be served.”
Gupta, the weapons trafficker deployed by the India Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) to carry out the assassination, was served while in custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn (NY), where he awaits trial in the ongoing criminal case.
In the civil case filed in the Southern District of New York by Pannun, the victim of India’s “murder for hire” plot, Gupta is the co-defendant while the primary defendants include the Government of India, Modi’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, RAW’s then chief Samant Goel, and Vikram Yadav, the RAW officer who has since been criminally indicted and declared wanted by the FBI in the ongoing criminal case.
According to the civil complaint, Modi’s government’s plot was part of India’s broader effort to kill prominent Sikh activists who advocate for the right to self-determination for Sikh people over the Indian region of Punjab, criticise the persecution of religious minorities, and condemn human rights abuses by India’s Modi regime.
