According to an investigation, since 2020 the number of operations carried out abroad by the Research & Analysis Wing, which reports directly to the office of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has increased. Islamabad is reluctant to talk about the issue because the people involved are terrorists or militants from organizations that Pakistan has always denied are on its territory.
Delhi () – At the beginning of the month, India was accused of having carried out dozens of selective executions in Pakistan as part of a strategy to eliminate terrorist threats even on foreign soil. The news went relatively unnoticed, compared to the accusations leveled by Canada against the Indian secret services of having eliminated a Sikh activist in favor of the independence of Khalistan, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, with Canadian citizenship. On that occasion, Delhi denied any involvement, but has made no secret that it is targeting those who are involved in terrorist activities in India and then take refuge abroad, especially in Pakistan.
Actually Islamabad had already declared earlier this year that he had credible evidence linking Indian spies to the murder of two citizens in Pakistan. “We have documentary, financial and forensic evidence of the participation of the two Indian agents who planned these homicides“said the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Muhammad Syrus Qazi. The exchange of mutual accusations is not new between the two rivals who dispute the Kashmir region and Delhi has repeatedly claimed that Islamabad trains and harbors Islamic militants who carry out attacks in the section of the Himalayan region administered by India.
But at the beginning of April Guardian published research that sheds new light on India's strategy. Starting in 2019, India began executing individuals abroad as part of a new approach to national security, according to a series of interviews with intelligence officials from both countries. However, since 2020 the frequency of homicides has increased and at least 20 cases have been recorded in Pakistan at the hands of the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), controlled directly by the office of the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, who, in the elections that begin today, he will probably be elected for a third term.
According to investigations by Pakistani agencies, the murders were orchestrated by Indian intelligence cells based in the United Arab Emirates. The increase in homicides in 2023 is attributed to the increase in the activities of these cells, which are accused of paying millions of rupees to local petty criminals or destitute Pakistanis in exchange for information about suspected terrorists or forcing them to carry out the murders. . Indian agents also reportedly recruited jihadists by making them believe that the targets were “infidels.”
For the first time, the operations were also commented on by Indian intelligence officials, who explained that the spy agency's attention to dissidents abroad began in 2019, when Modi was running for a second term. At that time the terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed had carried out an attack on an Indian military convoy in Pulwama, Kashmir, in which 40 paramilitaries were killed. “After Pulwama, the approach changed, to target elements outside the country before they were in a position to launch an attack or create disturbances,” said an Indian agent, specifying that to carry out such operations “it requires approval from the highest level of government.”
According to analysts, Pakistani authorities did not publicize the series of killings because most of the targets were known terrorists or militants belonging to groups that Islamabad denies are on its territory.
Amir Tamba, a man acquitted of the murder of an Indian spy, was recently found dead in Lahore, Pakistani police officials in charge of the investigation said. Tamba was suspected of having killed Sarabjit Singh, an Indian national convicted of espionage in 1991, who in 2013, while in prison, was attacked by his cellmates. The Pakistani media, also in this case, were reluctant to comment on the news, unlike the Indian ones, although the Delhi authorities did not add any clarification on the matter.
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