WASHINGTON; The United States said Wednesday it had been informed by India that an intelligence operative accused of directing an assassination plot on US soil is no longer in government service.
The action by New Delhi represented a sharp contrast to its defiant approach to similar charges from Canada, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday accused India of violating his country’s sovereignty.
An Indian committee set up to examine the US case visited Washington for talks on Tuesday — a tension-easing diplomatic process that came just as the row between India and Canada was escalating much more publicly.
“We’ve received an update from them on the investigation that they have been conducting. It was a productive meeting,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
“They did inform us that the individual who was named in the Justice Department indictment is no longer an employee of the Indian government,” he said.
“We are satisfied with the cooperation.” US prosecutors charged an Indian citizen last November over a foiled attempt in New York to kill an advocate for a separate Sikh homeland in India.
The indictment described an “Indian government employee,” who was not publicly named, as recruiting the hitman and directing the assassination plot remotely, including by arranging the delivery of $15,000 in cash.
The Hindustan Times, quoting an unnamed US official, said Monday that India not only removed but arrested the employee on “local charges.” The State Department did not confirm the arrest. The Washington Post, in an extensive article in April, identified the employee as Vikram Yadav, an officer in India’s intelligence agency, known as the Research and Intelligence Wing (RAW).
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