The court’s reasoning has to be respected. But that does not mean India’s investigative strategy cannot be questioned. It should be. India should have recognised from the beginning that this was a case with significant geopolitical dimensions. That required an investigative strategy commensurate with those dimensions.
Forty-eight hours after Matthew VanDyke was arrested in India, I told a television channel that I believed he would eventually be released. My assessment was that the international geopolitical ecosystem surrounding VanDyke would eventually become a factor in the case. Today, that prediction has materialised. VanDyke has been released from Tihar Jail and permitted by a Delhi court to travel to the United States for one month.
But having watched the case develop, I believe India should have taken a tougher investigative position. My concern is not about denying an accused person due process. It is about whether India, having itself registered a case involving alleged links to armed groups, drone warfare and Myanmar’s conflict theatre, should have allowed the principal foreign accused to leave the country while the investigation into the more serious allegations remains unfinished.
That is the central question.
VanDyke was arrested by the National Investigation Agency on March 13, 2026, along with six Ukrainian nationals. The case initially involved allegations under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. The NIA’s investigation concerned alleged links with ethnic armed groups operating in Myanmar and alleged training involving drone warfare. The agency also told the court that several consignments of drones from Europe had allegedly been delivered to individuals and groups in Mizoram. These are not allegations that should be casually dismissed.
At the same time, the public record also shows that the NIA had not established conclusive evidence that VanDyke and the others had acted directly against India. The agency maintained that its UAPA investigation was continuing and that further evidence could potentially lead to supplementary charges.
That creates an obvious contradiction in India’s position. If the UAPA investigation was sufficiently serious to remain open, why was the investigation not brought to the point where the agency could present its complete case within the statutory period?
VanDyke was arrested on March 13. The 180-day period available for completion of the investigation under the relevant UAPA framework expired on September 8. On that very day, the NIA filed its chargesheet—but the chargesheet invoked Sections 21 and 23 of the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, rather than UAPA provisions. The agency maintained that the UAPA investigation remained open.
That procedural development became decisive. On September 18, Special NIA Judge Prashant Sharma granted VanDyke default bail, holding that the chargesheet was effectively “piecemeal” because it dealt with immigration offences while the UAPA investigation remained pending. The court held that the investigating agency could not circumvent the statutory framework by filing an incomplete chargesheet to prevent the accused from claiming default bail.
The court’s reasoning has to be respected. But that does not mean India’s investigative strategy cannot be questioned. It should be.
If the state believes that an individual is connected to a network involving foreign armed groups, military training, drone technology and movements across sensitive border regions, the investigation must be built with extraordinary precision. The burden is on the investigating agency to collect evidence, establish the chain of events, identify the individuals and organisations involved, document communications and financial transactions, establish the origin and destination of equipment, and then present the evidence within the framework of law.
That did not happen quickly enough. And the consequences are now visible. VanDyke has not merely obtained bail. He has been permitted to leave India.
On September 24, the Delhi court allowed VanDyke and the six Ukrainian nationals to travel to their home countries for one month. The court noted that the NIA itself had submitted that their physical presence was not required in the immediate future to complete the investigation, provided undertakings and contact details were furnished.
Legally, the court was dealing with the material placed before it. Strategically, however, India should ask whether it placed itself in this position unnecessarily. The irony is difficult to miss.
The NIA arrested foreign nationals because it considered their activities serious enough to warrant investigation under India’s anti-terror framework. Months later, the same investigation had not reached the stage where the agency could sustain the relevant UAPA allegations in its chargesheet. The immediate prosecution consequently shifted to immigration offences. Those offences were compoundable, and VanDyke subsequently paid Rs 5.5 lakh in compounding charges to the Foreigners Regional Registration Office.
Once that happened, the legal ground beneath the detention became considerably weaker.
This is where I return to what I told the television channel 48 hours after VanDyke’s arrest. I had argued that the international dimensions of the case would eventually matter. VanDyke is not simply another foreign tourist caught violating an immigration rule. His public biography includes involvement in conflicts in Libya and Iraq and military-training activities. The NIA’s own case involved alleged connections to Myanmar-based armed organisations and alleged drone-related training.
Whether every allegation against him can ultimately be proved is a matter for the investigation and courts.
But India should have recognised from the beginning that this was a case with significant geopolitical dimensions. That required an investigative strategy commensurate with those dimensions. It required speed. It required coordination between agencies. It required forensic examination of electronic devices, financial transactions, communications, travel histories, equipment movements and international connections. It required establishing precisely who financed the activities, who ordered equipment, where that equipment went, who received it and what training was actually conducted. And it required doing all this within the statutory framework.
The lesson here is not that India should hold foreign nationals indefinitely. Nor is it that courts should deny statutory bail. Those are not sustainable propositions under the rule of law. The lesson is that India’s investigative agencies must never allow a serious national-security investigation to reach a procedural cliff because the evidence has not been assembled in time.
That is the institutional failure that deserves examination.
There is also a broader strategic dimension.
India’s northeastern frontier is one of the most sensitive geographical theatres in the country. Mizoram borders Myanmar. Myanmar itself is experiencing a prolonged armed conflict involving the military, ethnic armed organisations and other armed groups. Weapons, drones, money and people moving through such an environment inevitably deserve heightened scrutiny when their activities intersect with Indian territory.
The NIA itself has said that it is continuing its UAPA investigation. That means the story is not necessarily over.
But once an accused person is outside India, investigative complications can increase. Access to the individual becomes more dependent on international cooperation. Interviews, searches, seizures and further questioning can become more difficult. Evidence involving foreign jurisdictions may require diplomatic and legal processes. And if supplementary charges are ultimately contemplated, India may have to deal with an accused who is no longer physically within its jurisdiction.
That is why I believe India should have exercised greater strategic caution before permitting VanDyke to leave.
My position is not that VanDyke should be presumed guilty. Quite the opposite. A strong national-security system does not need to presume guilt. It needs to establish facts.
If the evidence establishes criminal conduct, prosecute it. If the evidence does not establish the allegations, let the law take its course.
But between those two points lies the investigation—and the investigation must be allowed to run effectively.
The VanDyke case should therefore become a case study for India’s national security architecture. How did a case initially registered under UAPA reach September with a chargesheet limited to immigration offences? Why did the agency require the full statutory period and still not have a completed UAPA chargesheet? What happened to the evidence relating to the consignments? What precisely were the alleged links with Myanmar-based armed groups? Were there financial links? Were there communications with Indian individuals or organisations? Were there intelligence inputs that triggered the original arrest? And what additional evidence does the NIA believe it still needs before it can decide whether supplementary UAPA charges are warranted?
These questions should be answered transparently within the limits of national security. Because the real issue is bigger than Matthew VanDyke.
It is about whether India can investigate transnational security networks with the speed, precision and institutional coordination required in the twenty first century.
I predicted VanDyke’s release because I believed the geopolitical forces surrounding the case would eventually create pressure points. I did not want that prediction to come true. I would rather have seen India complete its investigation, establish the facts and allow the evidence – not geopolitics, not diplomacy and not procedural lapses—to determine the next stage of the case.
India cannot control what Washington, Moscow, Beijing, Ankara or any other capital may want. But India can control the quality of its investigation.
That is where the lesson of the VanDyke case lies.
A sovereign India must never be strategically naïve. It must be legally rigorous, investigative in its approach and uncompromising about establishing facts.
VanDyke has now left India. The question is whether India will learn from how it happened.
*Dr Savio Rodrigues, PhD, is a strategic affairs thinker, author, journalist, and Founder & Editor-in-Chief of GoaChronicle, specialising in geopolitics, national security, public affairs, strategic communications, and peacebuilding.
