India said Vikash Yadav was no longer a government official
PRANPURA:
A former Indian official accused by the US of directing an assassination plot has rejected the charges, 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 Delhi.
The US Department of Justice charged Yadav last year with leading a failed plot to kill Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun. Yadav was an official of the spy agency's Research and Analysis Wing, according to the indictment released on Thursday.
India, which has said it is investigating the allegations, said Yadav was no longer a government official, without saying whether he had been an intelligence officer.
“The family has no information” about him working for the spy agency, said Yadav's cousin in Pranpura village in Haryana state. “He never said anything about it,” despite the two speaking regularly.
“For us, he is still working for the CRPF,” said the federal Central Reserve Police Force, which he joined in 2009, 28-year-old Avinash Yadav. “He told us he is a deputy commander” and was trained as a paratrooper.
The cousin said he did not know where Yadav was but that he lives with his wife and a daughter born last year.
Indian officials have not commented on Yadav's whereabouts. The Washington Post reported Thursday, citing US officials, that Yadav was still in India and the US was expected to seek his extradition.
His mother, Sudesh Yadav, 65, said she was still in shock. “What can I say? I don't know if the US government is telling the truth or not.”
“He worked for the country,” she said.
The US accuses Yadav of ordering another Indian national, Nikhil Gupta, who allegedly paid a hit man $15,000, to kill Pannun.
But in Pranpura, Yadav's cousin pointed to the family's modest, single-storey home and said, 'Where will so much money come from? Do you see Audis and Mercedes queuing outside this house?'
Most of the village's nearly 500 families have traditionally sent young men to join the security forces, locals said.
Yadav's father, who died in 2007, was an officer in the Indian Border Police until his death in 2007, and his brother works in the police force in Haryana, Avinash Yadav said.
Another cousin, Amit Yadav, 41, said Vikash Yadav had been a quiet boy who was interested in books and athletics and was a national-level marksman.
“Only the government of India and Vikash know what happened,” he said, adding that Indian officials should inform them.
If the government “abandons” a paramilitary officer, Amit Yadav said, “who will work for them?”
Avinash Yadav said, “We want the Indian government to support us, they should inform us what happened. Where else should we go?”
