US media report names RAW officer in alleged plot to take out Gurpatwant Pannun; MEA responds

quote, The Government of India has been very clear with us that they are taking this seriously and and will investigate and we expect that that accountability from the government based on that. And so, but we’re going to continue to raise our concerns. That’s not going to stop. We’re going to continue to raise our concerns directly, directly with the Indian government. A report in Washington Post, a US newspaper, has claimed that a Research and Analysis Wing officer, Vikram Yadav, instructed a hired HIT team to kill US based Khalistani separatist Gurpatwan Singh Pannu. According to the report, U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that the operation targeting Pannu was approved by the RAW chief at the time, Samanth Goyal. It adds that Yadav was transferred back to CRPF after the Pannu plot unraveled last year. US authorities has last year indicted an Indian national, Nikhil Gupta for the plot, alleging that he was acting at the behest of an Indian official they referred to in the indictment as CC One. However, the White House refrained from commenting on the FBI probe into the matter and the criminal case filed by the Department of Justice. The White House Press secretary asserted that India is an important strategic partner of the United States and quote, we are pursuing an ambitious agenda to expand our cooperation in several areas. the Washington Post had a lengthy story today detailing efforts by Indian intelligence services to carry on assassination in the United States. Now that some of those, I know you were asked about it when there were when this first emerged, but now that the details are known, can you talk about that, how, if at all this has impacted our relationship with India, what steps we may be taking to make sure that you know something like this doesn’t happen. So any specifics, there’s an investigation as you know going going on. So as you just stated in your question to me and a criminal investigation, Department of Justice obviously is running that. So anything specific to that I would have to refer to the DOJ. Look, India is an important strategic partner here in the United States for the of sorry of the United States. So we are pursuing an ambitious agenda to expand our cooperation in in several areas. As you know, we’ve been really consistent about that and have laid that out multiple times whether it’s a meeting here with the with the Prime Minister or a meeting abroad. This is a serious matter and we’re taking that very, very seriously. The Government of India has been very clear with us that they are taking this seriously and and we’ll investigate and we expect that the accountability from the government based on that and so but we’re going to continue to raise our concerns that’s not going to stop. We’re going to continue to raise our concerns directly, directly with the Indian government. While India had formed a high level committee in November to probe the information shared by the US about the role of Indian official, saying it had a bearing on India’s security to the government has so far not revealed any of its findings. In response to the media queries on the story in the Washington Post, Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson of MEA, said quote the report in the question makes unwarranted and unsubstantiated imputations on a serious matter. There is an ongoing investigation of the high level committee set up by the Government of India to look into the security concern shared by the US government on networks of organized criminals, terrorists and others. Speculative and irresponsible comments on it are not helpful UN quote.