An Indian nationwide was charged Wednesday in New York with plotting to kill a Sikh separatist, a scheme uncovered earlier this yr by a consortium of legislation enforcement officers working an undercover drug case.

Nikhil Gupta is accused of paying a success man to assassinate Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a pacesetter of Sikhs for Justice, a New York-based group that’s pushing for an impartial Sikh state inside India.

A activity pressure led by the Drug Enforcement Administration found the alleged plot after a special Sikh separatist was killed in Canada, sources conversant in the case informed ABC News. The Canadian killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar prompted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to accuse New Delhi in what turned a world incident.

“As alleged, the defendant conspired from India to assassinate, right here in New York City, a U.S. citizen of Indian origin who has publicly advocated for the establishment of a sovereign state for Sikhs, an ethnoreligious minority group in India,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams stated. “We will not tolerate efforts to assassinate U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, and stand ready to investigate, thwart, and prosecute anyone who seeks to harm and silence Americans here or abroad.”

Gupta was directed by an unnamed “senior field officer in the Indian government with intelligence experience to orchestrate the assassination of the victim,” based on the indictment.

The purported hitman Gupta employed was really a confidential supply working for U.S. legislation enforcement, the indictment stated. In May, Gupta agreed to pay $100,000.

According to prosecutors, Gupta needed the homicide carried out “as soon as possible” however requested the hitman to keep away from occasions of “anticipated engagements scheduled to occur in the ensuing weeks between high-level U.S. and Indian government officials.”

He was arrested within the Czech Republic and has not but been extradited to the United States, based on sources conversant in the case. Gupta is charged with murder-for-hire and murder-for-hire conspiracy. It’s unclear if he is obtained a lawyer.