India admits to involvement of officials to kill Gurpatwant Pannun: Report

New Delhi, March 20

The Government has accepted the involvement of its officials in the plot to kill a US-based Sikh separatist but said its probe has found that they were rogue officials.

New Delhi has submitted the findings of the government-appointed investigation panel to US authorities, said media reports in this respect. No official confirmation was available to the report by a western media agency.

It quoted unnamed Indian government senior officials as saying that at least one person who was directly involved in the alleged plot not authorised by the government was no longer working for India’s external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, suggesting that he may have retired.

The report further said the Central government had not yet started any criminal proceedings against the former RAW official.

Hours before the US Department of Justice made public its chargesheet in the Pannun case on November 30 last year, the MEA announced that India had already set up a high-level Commission of Inquiry on November 18 and had termed the US charge as a “matter of concern”.

Several high-level US administration officials have met Indian interlocutors to underscore the importance of holding accountable anyone found responsible in the probe announced by India “to investigate the lethal plotting”.

Earlier, the Canadian government had alleged potential Indian government links in the murder of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey in June last year.