US Hindutva leader ridiculing India’s ineptitude appears to assume Indian link to overseas killing
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The arrest of Indian national Nikhil Gupta by United States authorities, and the subsequent remark by a leader of the US-based right-wing Hindu American Foundation ridiculing Indian intelligence services for their failure to execute the killing of Sikh activists on American soil, ignited a polemical situation, thereby placing India in the dock over its alleged covert assassination plots when the leader openly derided the country’s perceived incompetence.
Gupta’s guilty plea before a federal court in New York, in connection with a conspiracy to assassinate Sikh separatist figure Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, has already intensified diplomatic sensitivities between New Delhi and Western capitals, yet it was the incendiary commentary delivered during a February 19 episode of the “HAF Reacts” programme that deepened the controversy.
Samir Kalra, managing director of the foundation, was heard ridiculing what he characterised as the “sloppy” execution of the alleged plot, and he went so far as to suggest that those responsible had bungled the operation with startling ineptitude, The Wire reported.
His remarks, laced with coarse analogies and flippant bravado, were swiftly condemned by a coalition comprising The Sikh Coalition, Hindus for Human Rights, and the Sikh American Legal Defence and Education Fund, which argued that the commentary appeared to concede the possibility of India’s involvement in ordering a hit on an American citizen within sovereign US territory.
The organisations described the episode as emblematic of a troubling trivialisation of what they termed transnational repression, asserting that such rhetoric undermines the gravity of threats faced by diaspora activists.
The reverberations have extended beyond American borders, for Canadian authorities recently issued a “duty to warn” notice to Moninder Singh, head of the Sikh Federation of Canada, citing credible threats to his life.
Singh had previously been cautioned alongside Hardeep Singh Nijjar, whose 2023 assassination was later linked by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to Indian state actors.