Gurpatwant Singh Pannun is a Khalistani terrorist designated by India.
Washington:
Declaring that the investigation into the alleged plot to assassinate Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun is an ongoing legal matter, the US State Department said it “would not speak” until “the allegations are proven” before a jury.
Gurpatwant Singh Pannun is a designated terrorist of India who holds American and Canadian citizenship.
“There is an indictment released to the public that contains alleged facts or allegations. Until they are proven in front of a jury that anyone can go and read them, I will not speak to them here because “Of course, this is an ongoing legal matter, and I’ll leave it at that,” spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a State Department press briefing on Thursday (local time).
Miller’s remarks came in response to a media question about the investigation into the Pannun case.
A Czech court notably decided that Prague could extradite to the United States the Indian Nikhil Gupta, aged 52, accused by the United States of being involved in the alleged assassination attempt of the Sikh separatist leader Pannun, a Czech resident. media outlet Seznam Zpravy reported, citing the Infosoud judicial database.
As per the US Department of Justice indictment, Indian national Nikhil Gupta is currently in custody and has been charged with murder for hire, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Czech authorities arrested and detained Gupta on June 30, 2023, under the bilateral extradition treaty between the United States and the Czech Republic.
The U.S. Department of Justice had alleged that an Indian government employee, not identified in the indictment filed in Manhattan federal court, recruited Indian national Nikhil Gupta to hire a hitman to carry out the murder. Panun, which was foiled by the American authorities.
The Foreign Ministry had also rejected a Washington Post report in April reporting the involvement of an Indian official from the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) in the alleged plot to kill Khalistan terrorist Pannun in the United States. United.
Terming it an “unwarranted and unfounded” imputation on a “serious matter” which is under investigation, official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Randhir Jaiswal, said the reports American media were “speculative and irresponsible”.
India has also set up a high-level committee to probe the matter.
In addition, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that Washington has not yet provided reliable evidence of the involvement of Indian citizens in this matter.
“According to the information available to us, Washington has not yet provided reliable evidence of the involvement of Indian citizens in the preparation of the murder of a certain GS Pannun. Speculation on this subject in the absence of evidence is unacceptable “, declared the official spokesperson. of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova said at a press briefing.
Separately, responding to a media question on the ongoing elections in India, the US State Department spokesperson said that Washington does not get involved in polls anywhere in the world.
“Elections in India, to the extent that we don’t get involved in any elections in the world, those are decisions for the people of India to make,” Miller said.
In April, the US State Department’s principal deputy spokesperson, Vedant Patel, when asked about India’s Lok Sabha elections and whether the US had sent observers, said: “In my opinion To our knowledge, the United States has not sent observers. in the case of advanced democracies like India. »
“We are of course looking forward to continuing to deepen and strengthen our cooperation with our partners in India, and we will simply let the elections play out. I have no assessment or comment to make on this matter,” he said. -he declares. declared during a press briefing.
The Lok Sabha elections are being held in seven phases from April 19 to June 1 and are the second longest poll in India’s electoral history after the first general elections, which were held over five months between September 1951 and February 1952.
The counting of votes will take place on June 4. Notably, the last general elections in 2019 were also held in seven phases.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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