India on Thursday dismissed leader of now-banned Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) Gurpatwant Singh Pannun’s lawsuit against the Indian government over his alleged “assassination” attempt as “unwarranted and unsubstantiated imputations.”
Pannun had on Tuesday filed a civil lawsuit in the US district court for southern New York, aimed at holding the Indian government accountable for its alleged involvement in the death of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, British Columbia, last year and a plot on Pannun soon afterwards.
The lawsuit filed by Pannun says gunmen in shot Nijjar 34 times ‘at point blank range before fleeing,’ and a video of Nijjar’s ‘bloody body’ was sent to Nikhil Gupta ‘as a message to move forward’ with the murder plot against Pannun.
Indian national Nikhil Gupta has been accused of being involved in a murder-for-hire plot against Pannun on American soil, and was arrested in the Czech Republic last year at the request of the US government.
“As we have said earlier, these are completely unwarranted and unsubstantiated imputations,” said Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri.
“Now that this particular case has been lodged, it doesn’t change our views about the underlying situation. I would only invite your attention to the person behind this particular case whose antecedents are well known,” the official said.
The group represented by Pannun is an “unlawful organization”, and has been declared as such under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act of 1967, on account of its “involvement in anti-national and subversive activities aimed at disrupting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India,” he said.
 Gurpatwant Singh Pannun’s lawsuit against the Indian government over his alleged “assassination” attempt as “unwarranted and unsubstantiated imputations.”){kind=link}