‘The Guardian’, a renowned global newspaper, claimed in a report quoting some “intelligence operatives of India and Pakistan” that the Indian government assassinated individuals in Pakistan as part of a wider strategy to eliminate terrorists living on foreign soil.
The London-based daily claims to have some documents that “shed light on how India’s foreign intelligence agency allegedly carried out operations to eliminate the individuals abroad”.
The report says that India carried out these operations “as part of an emboldened approach to national security after 2019”. According to the report, the fresh claims relate to almost 20 killings since 2020 which have been carried out by unknown gunmen in Pakistan.
‘The Guardian’ report says, “While India has previously been unofficially linked to the deaths, this is the first time Indian intelligence personnel have discussed the alleged operations in Pakistan, and detailed documentation has been seen alleging RAW‘s direct involvement in the assassinations”.
The fresh allegations refer to those charged with violent terror offences. Referring to the details shared by the Pakistani investigators, the London-based newspaper said that “these deaths were orchestrated by Indian intelligence sleeper cells, mostly operating out of the United Arab Emirates”.
According to the report, two Indian intelligence officers claimed the spy agency’s shift to focusing on dissidents abroad was triggered by the Pulwama attack in 2019, when a suicide bomber targeted a military convoy in Indian-administered Kashmir, killing 40 paramilitary personnel. The Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed claimed responsibility.
The reports says that the intelligence sources claimed that targeted assassinations increased significantly in 2023, accusing India of involvement in the suspected deaths of about 15 people, most of whom were shot at close range by unknown gunmen.
The report says, the majority of those allegedly killed by Raw in Pakistan in the past three years have been individuals associated with militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, and in several cases have convictions or proven links to some of India’s deadliest terrorist incidents, which have killed hundreds of people. Others were seen to be “handlers” of Kashmiri militants who helped coordinate attacks and spread information from afar.
The allegations also suggest that Sikh separatists in the Khalistan movement were targeted as part of these Indian foreign operations, both in Pakistan and the west.
“Two Indian operatives separately confirmed that diaspora Khalistani activists had become a focus of India’s foreign operations after hundreds of thousands of farmers, mostly Sikhs from Punjab, descended on Delhi to protest against new farm laws. The protest ultimately forced the government into a rare policy U-turn, which was seen as an embarrassment. The suspicion in Delhi was that firebrand Sikh activists living abroad, particularly those in Canada, the US and the UK, were fuelling the farmers’ protests and stirring up international support through their strong global networks. It stoked fears that these activists could be a destabilising force and were capable of reviving Khalistani militancy in India.”
The news is “false and malicious anti-India propaganda”, said the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) after The Guardian reported that India had carried out targeted killings in Pakistan to eliminate terrorists. The ministry further quoted Foreign Minister S Jaishankar who had previously said that targeted killings in other countries were “not the government of India’s policy”.
