Hindu nationalists at a recent rally in New Delhi held a banner depicting Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the alleged target of an assassination plot. Photo: arun sankar/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesAn Indian government employee tried to have a vocal Sikh critic of New Delhi assassinated in New York earlier this year, U.S. prosecutors alleged, a dramatic development that threatens to cause new rifts in the deepening relationship between Washington and New Delhi. The allegation, laid out in an indictment unsealed Wednesday, follows on suspicions Canada aired about a similar plot linked to Indian government agents in which masked gunmen murdered a Sikh activist in the parking lot of his British Columbia temple. Canada in part relied on U.S. intelligence to make that assessment, which was met with official outrage in India.

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Persons: Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, arun sankar Organizations: Agence France, An, Canada Locations: New Delhi, Delhi, New York, Washington and New Delhi, British Columbia, Canada, India