The former Indian official indicted by the US has denied the allegations, the family said, according to Reuters

Written by Krishna Kaushik

PRRANPURA, India (Reuters) – A former Indian official accused by the United States of plotting a murder-for-hire plot has denied the allegations, his family said, expressing shock that Vikash Yadav was wanted by the FBI.

Yadav, 39, described the allegations as false media reports when he spoke to his cousin, Avinash Yadav, a relative told Reuters on Saturday in their ancestral village 100 kilometers from the capital New Delhi.

The US Department of Justice charged Yadav with leading a failed plot to assassinate Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun last year. Yadav was an officer of India's Research and Analysis Wing spy service, according to the indictment filed on Thursday.

India, which has said it is investigating the allegations, has said Yadav is no longer a government employee, without saying whether he was an intelligence officer.

“The family has no information” about him working for a spy agency, said Yadav's cousin in the village of Pranpura in Haryana state. “He never said anything about it,” despite the two talking to each other regularly.

“For us he is still working for the CRPF,” the Federal Reserve Police Force, which he joined in 2009, said Avinash Yadav, 28. “He told us he was a deputy commander” and trained as a paratrooper.

The cousin said he does not know where Yadav is but he lives with his wife and daughter who was born last year.

Indian officials have not commented on Yadav's whereabouts. The Washington Post, citing US officials, reported on Thursday that Yadav is in India and that the US is expected to seek his extradition.

His mother, Sudesh Yadav, 65, said she is still in shock. “What can I say? I don't know if the US government is telling the truth or not.”

“He was working for the country,” he said.

The US accuses Yadav of targeting another Indian citizen, Nikhil Gupta, and said he paid the gunman $15,000 to kill Pannun.

But in Pranpura, Yadav's cousin pointed to the family's modest, one-story house, saying, “Where will all this money come from? Do you see the Audis and Mercedes lined up outside this house?”

Most of the nearly 500 families in the area used to send young men to join the security forces, said local people.

Yadav's father, who died in 2007, was an officer in the Indian border force until his death in 2007, and his brother works with the police in Haryana, Avinash Yadav said.

Another cousin, Amit Yadav, 41, said Vikash Yadav was a quiet boy who was interested in literature and athletics and was a national level scorer.

“Only the Indian government and Vikash know what happened,” he added, adding that Indian officials should inform them.

If the government “abandons” the army chief, Amit Yadav said, “then who will work for them?”

Avinash Yadav said: “We want the Indian government to support us, let us know what happened. Otherwise, where will we go?”