Ex Indian Spy, Wanted By FBI, Was Arrested For Delhi Kidnapping Last Year
US prosecutors charged Vikas Yadav for his alleged role in directing a failed plot to kill Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.
New Delhi : Vikas Yadav, a former employee of the Indian government whose name is found on the FBI’s wanted list, was arrested ten months ago by Delhi Police for attempting murder and kidnapping.
US prosecutors have charged a former official of the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) for his supposed role in running a botched assassination attempt on Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the latter citizen whose father is a US citizen, and the former citizen whose mother is a US citizen. The foreign ministry said Thursday that “no longer an employee of the government of India” is the individual named in the US Justice Department’s indictment.
Vikas Yadav alias Vikash Yadav was arrested by the special cell of Delhi Police last December on a complaint from a businessman from Rohini in north west Delhi and chargesheet was filed in March this year. Yadav himself had come out of jail on bail the next month in April.
A businessman who allegedly has many contacts in west Asia told police that his acquaintance had introduced him to Vikas Yadav in November 2023, and he had told him that he was a senior government officer. Soon, they shared mobile numbers to stay in touch.
A complaint Yadav said that he often questioned him about his work and friends. The former government employee had also told him that he worked as an undercover agent. But, he never shared any information about his work and office, the businessman told the police.
On 11 December, Yadav called him and said that he wanted to discuss some issue and asked him to come to Lodhi Road, as per the complaint. There was another man with Yadav when he reached the location. The businessman claimed that they forcibly kidnapped him and took him to a flat in Defence Colony, where Yadav told him that gangster Lawrence Bishnoi had given him a contract to kill him.
His associate then hit him on the head and took away his gold chain and rings, he alleged adding they went to his cafe and took whatever cash was there. The complainant alleges they left him on the side of a road and threatened him with dire outcome if he complained to anybody.
The businessman soon approached the police and a First Information Report or FIR was lodged in the case under the sections of attempt to murder, criminal conspiracy, and kidnapping. Yadav and his associate were arrested on December 18.
It was even revealed by the associate in a statement given at the time of interrogation that he had joined the conspiracy with Vikas Yadav due to losses that he was facing in his business of old vehicles. He had also testified that Yadav had informed him that his father worked in the Border Security Force.
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Vikas Yadav said that he had planned the whole murder in just one day he had the meeting with the businessman. Delhi Police lodged the case in March and Vikas got bail in April. Though Vikas got interim bail on March 22, but then he got regular bail in April.
US’ Charges Against Vikas Yadav
Vikas Yadav is accused of conspiracy to hire a hitman, the actual “murder-for-hire” plot, and money laundering. Charges against him and his alleged co-conspirator Nikhil Gupta were unsealed in New York’s Federal Southern District Court yesterday.
According to the indictment, Yadav was the alleged mastermind who recruited Gupta for this plot in exchange for helping him get criminal cases against him dismissed. Nikhil Gupta was arrested in the Czech Republic and was extradited to the US in June.
The details are often similar to those in the previous documents filed against Gupta but differ in as much as the name is mentioned this time-around:.
“Yadav recruited Gupta to orchestrate the killing of the Victim in the United States and that under Yadav’s instructions, Gupta reached out to a government “confidential source” whom he believed was “a criminal associate,” it said.
The plot allegedly started around May 6 last year with Yadav sending Gupta a message on an encrypted app, “This is Vikas. save my name as Aman”.
In June 2023, they agreed on a payment of $100,000 to allegedly kill the “victim”, the court document which did not name Pannun said. Yadav and Gupta arranged through an “associate of Yadav” to give $15,000 as advance.