Is 39-year-old Vikash Yadav a rogue Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) agent who undertook a private mission to eliminate Khalistani terrorist Gurupatwant Singh Pannun? Or is Yadav someone is who being thrown under the bus after his cover was blown by the United States (US)? The jury is out.
Let’s look at a couple of facts. It is now established that Yadav hails from a small village in Pranpura in Rewari, Haryana, and is the son of a retired Border Security Force (BSF) soldier, and was employed with the R&AW in Cabinet Secretariat since 2015 as a Senior Field Officer.
He lived in a government accommodation in Andrews Ganj, Delhi.
The second fact is that on December 5, 2022, Yadav filed a case in the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) against his bosses for a confirmation of his term with R&AW as he was still on probation after seven long years. The Secretary (R), Cabinet Secretariat, or simply the R&AW chief, was made first respondent.
THE CAT MYSTERY
Would a man still struggling to get his service confirmed from his employer be entrusted officially with a sensitive job to execute a mission abroad? The answer is debatable. The US alleges that it was in May 2023 that Yadav began the plot to execute Pannun on US soil. This was while he was fighting his own employer in CAT!
The fact also remains that the government did not respond to his application at CAT for almost 10 months till September 26, 2023, while multiple hearings in CAT got adjourned. Much before that, on June 30 that year, the US had already busted the assassination plot with the arrest of Yadav’s aide Nikhil Gupta in Czech Republic.
On October 9, 2023, the government finally passed an order confirming Yadav’s probation with effect from 2015. A big question here is — Would the government give relief to Yadav as some sort of ‘reward’ for his efforts, or are the CAT proceedings and the Pannun plot completely unrelated? It is matter of debate, but government sources maintain Yadav acted on his own accord.
Interestingly, the US had unveiled the first indictment against Gupta on November 29, 2023, mentioning there was an Indian government employee named ‘CC1’ in the plot too. This ‘CC1’ was revealed to be Vikash Yadav in the second indictment unsealed last week. When the government officially learnt of Yadav’s involvement in the Pannun plot is unclear too.
BIZARRE CRIME STORY
In between all this is a bizarre story of Yadav, including an extortion plot involving a local Delhi businessman whom he allegedly kidnapped on December 11 last year, asking for money in the name of Lawrence Bishnoi. Would a R&AW agent, who was arguably entrusted with a sensitive mission abroad just six months ago, be indulging in such a crime in the national capital?
He was promptly arrested and spent four months in jail till he got bail this year in April. It is possible that Yadav was expelled from service after arrest in this crime while sceptics would argue that he was thrown under the bus after his cover was blown by the US investigators. Both the US indictments do not explicitly implicate the Indian government for the Pannun plot.
An interesting side of the Delhi case is that Yadav cannot be extradited to the US till his trial and a possible jail sentence is complete in the Delhi case, which acts as a ‘safety cover’ of sorts.
NOVICE OPERATION?
Some sources are also pointing to the rather ‘novice’ operation in the US to indicate that Yadav acted on his accord rather than any government-backed plot. Yadav and Gupta had ended up hiring an informant of US law enforcement, and a US agent as the hitman for the operation.
Exposing the lack of background checks, they ended up talking with these two agents of the US for two months, including exchanging money, helping the US build up solid electronic evidence against Yadav and Gupta.
The truth behind the Vikash Yadav saga may well never be known.
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