NEW DELHI: Following allegations by the US of a foiled Indian plot to assassinate Sikh separatist and India-designated terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the Indian government said Wednesday it had constituted a high-level enquiry committee on November 18 to investigate the issue.
In its first reaction, on November 22, India had not revealed that there was a panel already probing information shared by US authorities about the plot and the announcement on Wednesday seemed designed to fend off pressure from Washington to act upon the questions it has formally raised with India about the issue.
It followed a Washington Post report earlier in the day saying the 2 top US security officials, CIA Director William Burns and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, had travelled to India separately to seek a probe into the matter. US NSA Jake Sullivan was also reported to have raised the issue with his counterpart Ajit Doval. The report also said federal prosecutors were planning to file a fresh indictment against an Indian national named Nikhil Gupta for paying a hit man to kill Pannun, a dual US-Canadian national. Gupta is said to have been in touch with an official in India.
The Biden administration said last week it’s treating the issue with utmost seriousness and an official was quoted by AP the same day as saying that the Indian government may have been aware of the plot. However, the Indian side has so far betrayed no consciousness of guilt as it continues to publicly maintain that the inputs shared by the Americans pertained to “nexus between organized criminals, gun runners, terrorists and others’’ and that these impinged on India’s own national security interests.
On Wednesday, the Indian government said it will take necessary follow-up action based on the findings of the enquiry committee. It recalled its initial reaction in which it had said India takes such inputs seriously and that relevant departments were already examining the issue.

“In this context, it is informed that on 18 November 2023, the Government of India constituted a high-level Enquiry Committee to look into all the relevant aspects of the matter,” said the government.
The FBI is currently investigating the Pannun assassination plot the US says it thwarted and wants India to cooperate, just as the US wants India to cooperate with the Canadian allegations of Indian involvement in the killing of another Khalistan leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Indian officials, however, have privately denied that the US has linked any Indian government agency or individual with the alleged plot to eliminate Pannun who is seen by India as a security threat.
“The US has shared information that’s actionable and that’s the reason it’s being probed. With Canada, you have nothing to move forward with,” said a source, speaking on condition of anonymity. India’s position on the Nijjar probe though has been another source of friction in ties with the US which has backed Canada’s allegations and also spoken against India’s expulsion of 41 Canadian diplomats in reprisal.
As has been reported, Biden himself had raised the Pannun issue with PM Narendra Modi in their bilateral meeting on the margins of the G20 summit. Significantly, the committee was formed just a week after the India-US 2+2 dialogue that had Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin visiting India. National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson had said that the matter had been raised with India at “seniormost levels” and that Indian authorities, while expressing surprise and concern, had responded that activity of that nature wasn’t their policy.
The US has apparently been raising the Pannun issue with India for the past 5 months and in the middle of efforts to further enhance bilateral ties with focus on defence and technology cooperation. The strife in ties over the alleged plot to kill Pannun also comes at a time India is hoping to host President Joe Biden for January 26 Republic Day and to hold the Quad summit the next day.