Gurpatwant Singh Pannun

Gurpatwant Singh Pannun is a lawyer in New York, a US and Canadian citizen, and the public face of Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), the group that runs the Khalistan Referendum votes among diaspora Sikhs. His supporters see a peaceful campaign for self-determination. The Indian state sees a banned group and a designated "terrorist."

The Khalistan Referendum. SFJ announced the referendum in 2018 as an unofficial, non-binding vote on whether Punjab should become an independent state, Khalistan. Voting began in October 2021 and had been held in the UK, Switzerland, Italy and Canada before Melbourne, where on 29 January 2023 the Sikh Press Association said some 17,000 had voted by midday and clashes broke out with people carrying Indian flags near the close. Pannun argues that Punjab was a sovereign state until the British took it over in 1849. India's consul general in Melbourne condemned the event as a threat to India's integrity.

India's case against him. India has banned SFJ since 2019, and in 2020 listed Pannun as an "individual terrorist," The Tribune and Al Jazeera report. IANS reported in 2023 that he faced 22 criminal cases in Punjab, three of them for sedition; this is the police account. IANS also reported that in October 2022 Interpol rejected an Indian request for a Red Notice against him, saying India had not given enough information. The Home Ministry extended the SFJ ban for five years in July 2024, and on 3 January 2025 the UAPA Tribunal, headed by Justice Anoop Kumar Mendiratta of the Delhi High Court, confirmed it. The Tribune reported that the tribunal found links with Babbar Khalsa International and the Khalistan Tiger Force and cooperation with Pakistan's ISI, after hearing 52 witnesses; this is the tribunal's finding on the government's evidence. Al Jazeera noted that his videos have been described as threatening toward Indian leaders, and that in November 2023 he warned people not to fly Air India from 19 November. Pannun rejects the label: "I'm not a terrorist," he told the Associated Press, Al Jazeera reported in February 2026.

The 2023 plot. On 29 November 2023 US prosecutors unsealed an indictment alleging that Nikhil Gupta, an Indian national, plotted with an Indian government employee, "CC-1," to hire a hitman to kill Pannun in New York. The hitman was an undercover DEA officer. Prosecutors say Gupta agreed to pay $100,000 and paid $15,000 in advance around 9 June 2023. He was arrested in Prague on 30 June 2023 and extradited to the US a year later. In October 2024 the US unsealed charges against Vikash Yadav, described as a former officer of India's Research and Analysis Wing, as CC-1; he is at large and believed to be in India. India said extraterritorial assassinations were "contrary to government policy," set up an inquiry committee on 18 November 2023, and later said the named individual was no longer a government employee.

Key moments

• October 2021: first Khalistan Referendum votes held.
• 29 November 2023: US indictment in the plot unsealed.
• 13 February 2026: Gupta pleads guilty to murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
• 20 November 2026: Gupta's sentencing, moved from 29 May and then 25 September after Pannun asked to take part.

His own account. Pannun says the Indian government is behind the plot and calls Gupta "just a foot soldier." He says he will continue even "if I have to face a bullet." FBI Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky said he "became a target of transnational repression solely for exercising their freedom of speech." India denies any involvement of its government.