NEW YORK (The Thursday Times) — A 54 year old Indian national has pleaded guilty in a New York federal case centred on a plan to assassinate a US based leader of the Sikh separatist movement, a plot that American prosecutors say was directed by an Indian government employee and designed to reach across borders to silence a political critic.
The case was announced by the US Department of Justice, which said the defendant, Nikhil Gupta, also known as “Nick”, admitted his role in arranging a murder for hire operation in New York City and pleaded guilty to murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
CASE UPDATE from @NewYorkFBI: Indian National Pleads Guilty To Plotting To Assassinate U.S. Citizen In New York City
Read more about the #FBI's commitment to defend the homeland athttps://t.co/CT7Ve75iUU. pic.twitter.com/G372X9QMGe
— FBI (@FBI) February 13, 2026
The intended victim, as described by the authorities, is a US citizen of Indian origin who has advocated for an independent Sikh homeland, Khalistan, and has been a prominent critic of the Indian government. Investigators said the target’s activism placed him in the crosshairs of a campaign to eliminate voices associated with the separatist cause.
“Nikhil Gupta plotted to assassinate a U.S. citizen in New York City,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton. “He thought that from outside this country he could kill someone in it without consequence, simply for exercising their American right to free speech. But he was wrong, and he will face justice. Our message to all nefarious foreign actors should be clear: steer clear of the United States and our people.”
At the centre of the prosecution’s narrative is an alleged coordinator, an Indian government employee who has been charged in the United States but remains at large. Prosecutors say the official recruited Gupta to organise the killing, then relied on him to act as a broker between the directive and the execution.
The plan, as laid out in court, unfolded with the mechanics of a contract killing: a fee, a timeline, and the steady transfer of identifying details intended to make a stranger’s life easy to end. Prosecutors said Gupta worked to secure a hitman for a six-figure payment, with a portion of the money sent upfront to begin the job.
What Gupta did not know, the authorities say, is that his search for criminal assistance collided with an undercover operation. He allegedly turned to a person he believed had access to organised crime networks, but who was in fact a confidential source cooperating with American law enforcement. The supposed hitman he then dealt with, prosecutors said, was an undercover officer.
As the scheme progressed, investigators said Gupta passed along personal information about the target, including contact details, location information, and patterns of movement, the sort of intelligence that transforms a public figure into a reachable one. The authorities also said he provided updates and materials meant to assist surveillance.
The case drew added attention because of its proximity to a delicate diplomatic period and because prosecutors placed it alongside a separate killing that had already sharpened international scrutiny. Officials said the plot included discussion of timing, including caution about carrying out the attack around the period of a high-profile visit by India’s prime minister to the United States in late June 2023.
In the same window, masked gunmen killed a Sikh separatist figure outside a Sikh temple in British Columbia, Canada, an assassination that Canadian authorities have publicly connected to Indian involvement and that has since strained relations between the two countries. In the American case, prosecutors said communications referenced that killing, treating it as part of a wider pattern of targeting.
Gupta was arrested abroad in 2023, prosecutors said, and was later extradited to the United States. He now faces sentencing in 2026 before a federal judge in Manhattan. The charges he pleaded to include murder-for-hire and related conspiracy counts, as well as a money laundering conspiracy count, reflecting prosecutors’ view that the payment arrangements were an essential part of the criminal enterprise.
In court, the guilty plea closed one chapter of the case while leaving broader questions hanging in the air. The alleged involvement of a government-linked figure, the selection of a US citizen as a target, and the setting of New York City as a battleground for an overseas political struggle have ensured that the matter will be read not only as a violent crime, but also as a test of how Washington responds when it says a foreign state has tried to export coercion into the United States.
