Murder-for-hire: Nikhil Gupta to go on trial in November

NEW DELHI: Indian national Nikhil Gupta, indicted by US authorities for plotting to kill Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, will go on trial November 3 this year and not in June or July as was earlier proposed.A US district judge of the Southern District of New York finalised the date for the trial, which will last only for a week, after both prosecution and defence sought postponement of the trial to allow them to file pretrial motions to resolve legal issues that may have a bearing on the trial.In a February 28 order, the Court had asked both parties to suggest a trial date in June or July. While the parties also said in their latest submission they anticipated the trial to last for approximately 2 weeks, the court allowed only a week to wrap up the trial. Gupta, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, has been held in a detention centre since the Czech Republic, where he was first detained, extradited him to the US on June 14 last year.Gupta stands accused of hiring a hitman for $ 100 thousand to eliminate Pannun, a dual US-Canadian national, all at the behest of an Indian government official identified as Vikash Yadav. The murder plot unravelled as the hitman turned out to be a federal undercover agent. Yadav allegedly hired Gupta in May 2023 to orchestrate the assassination of Pannun.According to the Department of Justice, Gupta is charged with murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and, if convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for each charge. 264The Trump administration has not been reported yet to have raised the murder-for-hire plot bilaterally with Indian authorities but the Biden government placed it right on top of its agenda with India, as it raised the issue at the highest level with the Indian government and pressured it to act against the Indian mastermind.The Indian government formed a high-level committee in November 2023 to probe the US findings. In January this year, days before Trump assumed office, the committee submitted a report recommending legal action against Yadav (without naming him) saying his “earlier criminal links and antecedents also came to notice during the enquiry”.