Indian ex-official indicted by US dismisses allegations, family says

20/10/2024 16:47

        An Indian ex-official charged by the U.S. with directing a murder-for-hire plot has dismissed the allegations, his family said, expressing shock that Vikash Yadav was wanted by the FBI.
        
        Yadav, 39, described the claims as false media reports when he spoke to his cousin, Avinash Yadav, the relative told Reuters on Saturday in their ancestral village about 100 km from the capital New Delhi.
        
        The U.S. Department of Justice charged Yadav with leading an unsuccessful plot to murder Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun last year. Yadav was an official of India's Research and Analysis Wing spy service, according to the indictment unsealed on Thursday.
        
        India, which has said it was investigating the allegations, said Yadav was no longer a government employee, without saying whether he had been an intelligence officer.
        
        "The family has no information" about him working for the spy agency, Yadav's cousin said in the village of Pranpura in Haryana state.
        
        The cousin said he did not know where Yadav was but that he lives with his wife and a daughter who was born last year.