A former Indian official charged by the US with directing a murder-for-hire plot has dismissed the allegations, his family said, expressing shock that Vikash Yadav was wanted by the FBI.

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

The US Department of Justice charged Yadav with leading an unsuccessful plot to murder Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun last year. 

Yadav was an official of India's Research and Analysis Wing spy service, according to the indictment unsealed on Thursday.

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

"The family has no information" about him working for the spy agency, Yadav's cousin said in the village of Pranpura in Haryana state. 

"He never mentioned anything about it," despite the two speaking to each other regularly.

"For us he is still working for the CRPF," the federal Central Reserve Police Force, which he joined in 2009, said Avinash Yadav, 28. 

"He told us he is deputy commandant" and was trained as a paratrooper - a relative of Yadav said

The cousin said he did not know where Yadav was but that he lives with his wife and a daughter who was born last year, Reuters reported.

Indian officials have not commented on Yadav's whereabouts. 

The Washington Post, citing American officials, reported on Thursday that Yadav was still in India and that the US was expected to seek his extradition.

His mother, Sudesh Yadav, 65, said she was still in shock. "What can I say? I do not know whether the US government is telling the truth or not."

"He has been working for the country," she said.

The US accuses Yadav of directing another Indian citizen, Nikhil Gupta, who it alleges paid a hitman paid $15,000, to kill Pannun.

But in Pranpura, Yadav's cousin pointed to the family's modest, single-storey house, saying, "Where will so much money come from? Can you see any Audis and Mercedes lined up outside this house?"

Most of the village's nearly 500 families have traditionally sent young men to join the security forces, locals said.

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

Another cousin, Amit Yadav, 41, said Vikash Yadav had been a quiet boy interested in books and athletics and was a national-level marksman.

"Only the government of India and Vikash know what has happened," he said, adding that Indian officials should inform them.

If the government "abandons" a paramilitary officer, Amit Yadav said, "then who will work for them?"

Avinash Yadav said: "We want the Indian government to support us, they should inform us what has happened. Otherwise where will we go?"

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar will not halt the "Axis of Resistance" and that Hamas would live on, Reuters reported.

"His loss is undoubtedly painful for the Axis of Resistance, but this front did not cease advancing with the martyrdom of prominent figures," Khamenei said in a statement. "Hamas is alive and will remain alive."

Sinwar, the architect of Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza, was killed on Wednesday in a gunfight with Israeli forces after a year-long manhunt, and his death was announced on Thursday, read the report.

"He was a shining face of resistance and struggle. With a steely resolve, he stood against the oppressive and aggressive enemy. With wisdom and courage, he dealt them the irreparable blow of October 7 that has been recorded in the history of this region. Then, with honor and pride, he ascended to the heavens of the martyrs," said Khamenei.

The "Axis of Resistance", built up with years of Iranian support, includes Hamas, the Lebanese Hezbollah group, the Houthi movement in Yemen, and various Shi'ite groups in Iraq and Syria. The groups describe themselves as the resistance to Israel and U.S. influence in the Middle East, Reuters reported.

"As always, we will remain by the side of the sincere fighters and combatants, by God's grace and help," Khamenei said.

U.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday there was an opportunity to deal with Israel and Iran in a way that potentially ends their conflict in the Middle East for a while.

Speaking to reporters at the end of a visit to Berlin, Biden also said he has an understanding of how and when Israel was going to retaliate against missile attacks by Iran. He declined to elaborate, Reuters reported.

Tensions have been high in the region with Israel planning a response to the Oct. 1 missile attack carried out by Tehran."There's an opportunity in my view and my colleagues agree that we can probably deal with Israel and Iran in a way that ends the conflict for a while. That ends the conflict, in other words, that stops the back and forth," Biden said.

Biden added that he believed there was a possibility of working towards a ceasefire in Lebanon but that such efforts would be harder in Gaza.

Pledges from Israel and its enemies Hamas and Hezbollah to keep fighting in Gaza and Lebanon dashed hopes on Friday that the death of Palestinian militant leader Yahya Sinwar might hasten an end to more than a year of escalating war in the Middle East.