Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, an advocate for Sikh separatism who survived a 2023 plot to kill him — one that authorities have linked to a former Indian intelligence official — disclosed to a news outlet on Thursday that federal investigators are now looking into additional threats against him.
Pannun, who has publicly opposed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, told reporters that FBI agents came to his New York City residence earlier that day to alert him about what he described as an impending threat against his life. His organization, Sikhs for Justice, has scheduled a non-binding referendum for Oct. 18 in Edmonton, Canada, asking whether the northern Indian region of Punjab ought to be established as an independent state under the name "Khalistan," with members of the Sikh community invited to cast ballots on the question.
In his published comments, Pannun separated the question of his personal safety from what he described as the underlying principle — namely, whether assassination threats carry enough force to stop Sikhs from pursuing self-determination — and indicated they do not. Pannun was told by agents that the matter remains under active investigation, with the threat linked to a possible trip to Canada for referendum participation, though no additional details were shared with him. No reply from the FBI had arrived by the time the report was published.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan brought charges identifying two individuals at the centre of an alleged assassination plot targeting Pannun, a dual citizen of the United States and Canada: Nikhil Gupta, a national of India, and Vikash Yadav, who previously served as an officer within Indian intelligence. Having entered a guilty plea in February on charges of murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, Gupta faces a November sentencing date at which Pannun is anticipated to address the court.
The timing of the alleged plot against Pannun overlapped with the fatal shooting of Hardeep Singh Nijjar — a fellow Sikh separatist advocate and close associate of Pannun — who was killed by gunfire outside a gurdwara in Surrey, British Columbia, in June 2023. That same month in 2023, authorities in Canada disclosed they held evidence pointing to the involvement of operatives working on behalf of the Indian government in the man's death — an act they described as a breach of the country's territorial integrity.
Denials from India regarding any role in both Nijjar's killing and the plot against Pannun have been on record. The group has been officially designated as holding a separatist agenda, with authorities asserting that its activities pose a threat to national security.
Law enforcement bodies in both the United States and Canada have issued Pannun such notices on more than one occasion during the current calendar year. During August and September, Pannun told reporters that law enforcement outreach had reached him on two separate occasions — once from the FBI and once from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police — each time concerning distinct threat matters.
Advisories from law enforcement, he noted, began arriving shortly after federal prosecutors based in Los Angeles unveiled criminal charges in July against a figure described as a top leader of the Indian organised criminal network referred to as "Bishnoi," along with eight of his associates, in connection with Nijjar's 2023 killing. Law enforcement authorities in India took Bishnoi into custody during 2015. According to the indictment, he allegedly directed the operations of a transnational criminal organisation even while held in custody.
Satinderjit Singh Brar, named in the indictment as a childhood friend of Bishnoi, faces accusations of having overseen the network's North American activities and of issuing the order to carry out the killing.
