Prosecutors say plot to kill Sikh leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun was linked to India government employee, an allegation New Delhi denies.

An Indian national has admitted in a United States court that he took part in a 2023 scheme to hire a hitman to assassinate a prominent Sikh separatist leader living in New York, federal prosecutors said.

Nikhil Gupta, 54, pleaded guilty on Friday over his alleged role in attempting to make contact with a hitman to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a Sikh separatist who holds dual US and Canadian citizenship.

Pannun is affiliated with a New York-based group called Sikhs for Justice that advocates for the secession of Punjab, a northern Indian state with a large Sikh population.

In court, Gupta told Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn that while in India in 2023, he transferred $15,000 online to someone he believed would carry out the assassination.

The individual that Gupta contacted was, in fact, a confidential source working with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

FBI Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky said Pannun “became a target of transnational repression solely for exercising their freedom of speech”.

Gupta, who was detained at Prague airport in the Czech Republic in June 2023 and extradited to the US, pleaded guilty to “murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, and conspiracy to commit money laundering”, the US attorney’s office for the southern district of New York said in a statement.

Under federal sentencing guidelines, Gupta could face between 20 and 24 years in prison. A plea agreement calls for him to serve at least two decades.

He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 29.

US and Canadian authorities say the plot forms part of a wider campaign to target Indian dissidents abroad, allegations that have strained ties between Washington, Ottawa and New Delhi.

‘The Sikh state of Khalistan is my life’s mission’

James C Barnacle Jr, head of the FBI’s New York office, said Gupta worked with an Indian government employee who directed him to arrange the killing.

Prosecutors allege that Indian intelligence officer Vikash Yadav, who remains at large, directed the plot and recruited Gupta in May 2023 to hire a hitman to carry out the murder.

Indian officials have denied involvement, saying any such operation would be contrary to government policy.

The case has drawn attention from Sikh activists in the US and Canada.

About two dozen Sikh supporters of Pannun attended Friday’s hearing, some chanting a victory slogan afterwards and holding a prayer service outside the court, waving yellow “Khalistan” flags – the name which they hope one day will replace Punjab.

Pannun, who is designated a “terrorist” by New Delhi, said in a telephone interview after the hearing that he would continue his activism “even if I have to face a bullet”.

“I’m not a terrorist”, he told The Associated Press news agency.

He described himself as a Sikh who, as a human rights lawyer, is campaigning to turn Punjab into a place where “all religions will have equal rights”.

Describing Gupta as “just a foot soldier”, Pannun called on US authorities to pursue those in India who he says authorised the plot.

“The Indian government cannot shield itself behind this operational foot soldier because the command, the direction and the funds are authorised by the Indian government,” he alleged.

“I am ready to take India’s bullet rather than take a step back and live like a slave. Working towards the independence of the Sikh state of Khalistan is my life’s mission, until either I am killed or Punjab becomes an independent country,” Pannun said.