The recommendation by the Indian government’s inquiry committee to pursue legal action against an unidentified individual allegedly involved in an alleged foiled plot to kill Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun is a “really positive first step”, United States Ambassador Eric Garcetti told The Times of India on Thursday.

However, he said that the report does not mark a “closed chapter for India or for America” as the inquiry is only at the stage of recommending action. “So those actions presumably will have to be taken, prosecutors will have to win victories but it’s a very positive step,” Garcetti told the Hindustan Times.

“It delivered what the private interactions I had with Indian officials promised,” Garcetti said. “We said changes should be made to ensure this doesn’t happen again and people should be held accountable.”

Garcetti was appointed as the US ambassador to India by the Joe Biden administration in May 2023. He is expected to step down when Donald Trump becomes the president on Monday.

The ambassador told The Hindu that the ongoing case in the United States about the matter “will be independent from anything here in India”.

Garcetti was responding to questions by reporters about the Indian investigation into an alleged foiled plot to kill Pannun on American soil.

On Wednesday, a high-powered inquiry committee, set up by the Union government to investigate the matter had recommended speedy “legal action against an individual”.

“After a long enquiry, the committee has submitted its report to the government and recommended legal action against an individual, whose earlier criminal links and antecedents also came to notice during the enquiry,” read the statement by the Union home ministry.

The ministry, however, did not name the individual against whom action has been recommended.

New Delhi set up the committee in November 2023 after the Financial Times reported that the Biden administration had foiled a plot to assassinate Pannun.

The report also said that the US had warned India about concerns that the Narendra Modi government was allegedly involved in the conspiracy. Indian officials expressed “surprise and concern” in response to the allegations, according to the White House.

Subsequently, the US Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, announced that it had filed murder-for-hire charges against an Indian citizen named Nikhil Gupta in connection with his alleged participation in the plot to assassinate Pannun.

Pannun, an American and Canadian citizen, is an advocate for Khalistan, an independent state for Sikhs. He is the general counsel of an organisation called Sikhs for Justice, which was banned in India in 2019. Pannun was declared an “individual terrorist” in India under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act in 2020.

On Wednesday, the home ministry stated that the high-powered committee was set up “on receipt of information provided by US authorities regarding activities of some organised criminal groups, terrorist organisations, drug peddlers, etc., who undermined the security interests of both India and the US”.

In November 2023, the US prosecutor alleged that Gupta paid $100,000, or Rs 84 lakh, in cash to a hitman to assassinate Pannun. The hitman turned out to be an undercover United States federal agent.

The plot was part of a larger conspiracy to kill one person in California and at least three in Canada, the US Department of Justice alleged.

In October, the US charged Vikash Yadav, a former officer of India’s foreign intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing, with murder-for-hire and money laundering in connection with the matter.

The United States Department of Justice alleged that Yadav had hired Gupta to murder Pannun.

Gupta denied having links to Yadav and told The Indian Express earlier this month that the evidence presented by the US was “fabricated”.

In June, Gupta pleaded not guilty at a Manhattan Federal Court in New York.

The US charges came months after the Canadian government alleged the involvement of Indian government agents in the killing of Sikh Separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar near Vancouver in June 2023.

New Delhi has denied involvement in the alleged plot to assassinate Khalistani separatists.