Vikash Yadav

Vikash Yadav is a former Indian government official whom US prosecutors accuse of directing a plot to murder Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York. He has not been tried or convicted, and every statement below about the plot is an allegation made by prosecutors or reported from their court papers.

On 17 October 2024 the US Justice Department unsealed a second superseding indictment naming him, with charges of murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and money laundering. It says that at the relevant time he worked for India's Cabinet Secretariat, which houses the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW). ThePrint reported that the FBI described him as a 39-year-old R&AW field agent. An earlier indictment, from November 2023, had referred to him only as "CC-1".

What the indictment alleges

• Early May 2023: he recruited Nikhil Gupta to arrange the killing in the United States.
• About 1 June 2023: he gave Gupta Pannun's addresses, phone numbers and daily routine.
• About 9 June 2023: through an associate, he arranged a $15,000 cash advance on a $100,000 fee.
• 18 June 2023: hours after Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot in Surrey, British Columbia, he sent Gupta a video purportedly showing Nijjar's body.

What India has said: India's Ministry of External Affairs said in November 2024 that he was no longer an employee of the government. India set up a high-level inquiry committee on 18 November 2023. On about 15 January 2025 the Home Ministry said it had recommended legal action against "an individual" whose earlier criminal links had come to notice, without naming him. ThePrint said this was most likely Yadav, which is its inference, not the ministry's statement.

Separate Delhi case: Delhi Police arrested him on 18 December 2023 in an extortion and abduction case brought on the complaint of a Rohini resident, and he was released on bail in April 2024 (Scroll, citing The Indian Express). Through his lawyer he told a Delhi court that the case is false and that his life was under threat.

Where it stands: after Nikhil Gupta's guilty plea in February 2026, The Wire reported that Yadav faces the same three charges, has a US federal arrest warrant, is on the FBI's most wanted list and is the subject of an Interpol Red Notice, and that he remains in India. It argued that the plea would help US prosecutors if Yadav were ever extradited, but noted that US courts do not normally try defendants in their absence, so a conviction would need him in court. The sources used here carry no statement from Yadav denying or answering the US charges.