Made scapegoat: Lawyers of ex-RAW official charged by US in Pannun murder plot

Vikash Yadav, the former RAW official named by the US in the failed assassination plot of Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, has said he was being made a “scapegoat in international politics”.

Speaking to India Today TV, Yadav’s lawyers RK Handoo and Aditya Choudhary said that there was no truth to the allegations levelled against him and that he was being made a scapegoat in international politics. The US Justice Department charged the former Indian intelligence officer, identified as CC-1 in its indictment, in the failed plot to kill Pannun.

The charges were part of a second indictment that was unsealed in a New York court. Yadav’s alleged co-conspirator, Nikhil Gupta, was previously charged and extradited to the United States. According to Vikash Yadav’s lawyers, he got to know about these allegations through media reports.

“Vikas Yadav has never stepped out of the country. He has never travelled abroad,” his lawyers told India Today TV. They also called the US allegations a conspiracy against India and the government.