FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Joint Statement on the Hindu American Foundation’s Remarkable Comments Regarding the Plot to Assassinate Sikhs on U.S. Soil
February 23, 2026 — On a February 20 episode of “HAF Reacts,” Hindu American Foundation’s Managing Director for Policy and Programs Samir Kalra said the following about the recent guilty plea of Nikhil Gupta and his role in a conspiracy to assassinate U.S.-based Sikhs:
“Man, if you’re gonna do a job, fucking do it right, too. I mean that’s the other thing. Why did you send such a sloppy person to do the job? And again, I’m not advocating it should have been successful, but come on, I mean, that was, like, worse than the D-team. Like when you walk into a strip club in the middle of the day, you get like the worst dancers that are there, right? You gotta go to like, prime time at night to get the best dancers, not during the daytime. And that’s like, this kind of operation! You have, like, the daytime dancers that were part of this operation. If you’re going to do it, freakin’ do it right. If you’re going to have somebody indicted, at least be successful in your operation. Shame on India or whoever was ordering this hit or whoever was involved in it for doing such a horrible, sloppy job.”
SALDEF (the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund), The Sikh Coalition, and Hindus for Human Rights, offered the following joint reaction:
“It is truly remarkable to watch HAF’s leadership openly yucking it up about a foreign government’s plot to kill U.S.-based individuals. In the course of his misogynistic shock jock routine, it is pretty incredible that Kalra appears to overtly concede that India could have been involved in ‘ordering this hit’—which, again, is an attempt to murder an American on American soil.”
“As a reminder, this is an ongoing threat—not just in our eyes, but in the eyes of the United States government. A former RAW official is still wanted by the FBI for his role in coordinating this conspiracy. Other Sikh activists received ‘duty to warn notices’ that they could be targets for assassination. And other governments, most notably Canada, have both publicly expelled multiple Indian consular officials for their role in transnational repression against the Sikh diaspora, as well as accused high-level officials of being involved in these plots.”
“We strongly encourage others in the civil rights ecosystem, media, and elsewhere to review this recording. The choice to post it without apology or qualification is illustrative of HAF’s positions, values, and seriousness; it is also essential context for any of their advocacy work moving forward on laws or policies that would seek to address the very real and persistent threat of transnational repression.”
###