A techie trained to kill Rajiv Gandhi in US, but then Haryana CM distracted him

"He was very well-spoken, very knowledgeable. It's hard for me to think of him as a terrorist. He was shy, well-mannered and amusing." That's what New York-based executive Fred Rossetti told India Today Magazine in 1985, describing a colleague who he often had lunch with. Khalistani terrorist Gurpratap Singh Birk, alias John Singh was just arrested. The software engineer earned up to $60,000 a year, held a doctorate and appeared every bit the ordinary techie. Rossetti told India Today Magazine Birk rarely wore a turban. Read Full Story But, according to the FBI, Gurpratap Singh Birk was the ringmaster of a conspiracy to overthrow the Indian government through violence, bombing strategic targets across India and assassinating Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi during his 1985 visit to the United States. Birk and his associates attended a terror camp, where Khalistani terror recruits were trained in explosives, automatic weapons, chemical warfare, urban guerrilla, assassination, and the sabotage of targets such as bridges, trains and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, India's premier multi-disciplinary nuclear research facility. The plot emerged barely months after Indira Gandhi's assassination in October 1984. Punjab was then witnessing a surge in militancy, Khalistani extremism and separatism. While the government moved to control things at home, the Khalistan demand found support among sections of the Sikh diaspora abroad. Fortunately, Rajiv Gandhi escaped. That's because Birk and his men, aided by some local private mercenary, who was actually an FBI agent, got distracted. They shifted their target to Haryana strongman Bhajan Lal, who was also visiting the US, first. The FBI, informed by its undercover agent, swooped in before the "Gandhi plot" sting could play out. Forty-one years later, this aborted 1985 plot to assassinate PM Rajiv Gandhi deserves a second look. Thursday (May 21) marked the 35th anniversary of the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. Rajiv was assassinated six years after the plot in the US was foiled. "Tributes to former Prime Minister Shri Rajiv Gandhi Ji on his death anniversary," Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X. Rajiv Gandhi's son and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi wrote a tribute alongside an old photograph of himself with his father. "Papa, I will fully shoulder the responsibility of realising the dream of a skilled, prosperous and strong India that you envisioned," Gandhi wrote on X. In 1991, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by Sri Lanka-based terror outfit Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in a suicide bombing at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu. The LTTE targeted Rajiv for his decision to place Indian military as the Indian Peace-Keeping Forces (IPKF) in Sri Lanka in 1987. The 46-year-old former PM was on the campaign trail, eyeing a comeback after the brief tenures of prime ministers VP Singh and Chandra Shekhar. The 1991 bombing that claimed Rajiv Gandhi's life, is remembered as the conspiracy that succeeded. Less remembered are the numerous plots that failed before it. Among them was the FBI's "Gandhi plot" investigation that unfolded in America over six years earlier. Long before the LTTE bomber approached Rajiv Gandhi in Tamil Nadu, American investigators nabbed Khalistani terrorists trying to do the same thousands of kilometres away. And this wasn't the only plot. According to the Jain Commission, "several attempts were made on the life of Shri Rajiv Gandhi and, in several instances, concrete steps were taken to make preparations to assassinate Shri Rajiv Gandhi" between October 1984 and May 1991, including the 1985 plot involving terrorists Gurpratap Singh Birk, Lal Singh and Ammand Singh. At the centre of that conspiracy stood a software engineer from Brooklyn. WHO WAS KHALISTANI TERRORIST GURPRATAP SINGH BIRK? When FBI agents began tracking Gurpratap Singh Birk, they were not looking at a stereotypical extremist. As India Today Magazine's Inderjit Badhwar reported in June 1985, Birk worked as a software engineer for Automated Tools Company in New York. He held a doctorate in engineering from London and earned a good living in Brooklyn. His wife and children remained in Britain, and he travelled on a British passport. To colleagues, he appeared courteous and intelligent, as Rossetti recalled. The only time he remembered seeing Birk wearing a turban was during a television appearance after Indira Gandhi's assassination, when he made remarks that appeared to justify the killing. According to Inderjit Badhwar's report, that television appearance caught the attention of the FBI, who were already monitoring Sikh extremist activities after the assassination of Indira Gandhi. Soon afterwards, Birk allegedly approached a gunrunner (smuggler and dealer) seeking information about paramilitary training. The gunrunner turned out to be an FBI informant, and the trap began to close. HOW DID THE FBI INFILTRATE THE RAJIV GANDHI ASSASSINATION PLOT IN 1985? Barely seven months after he became p