After Pulwama tragedy, Modi govt ordered killing of militants on foreign soil: Report

The Indian government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has carried out several assassinations of terrorists abroad including in Pakistan as part of a larger strategy to safeguard national security, The Guardian has said in a report.

‘Orders came from PMO’

The report quoting intelligence operatives from India and Pakistan and documents shared by Pakistani investigators, says the operation to eliminate terrorists who were a threat to India’s national security gained momentum in 2019 with spy agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) directly taking orders from the Prime Minister’s Office.

The claims made in the report support the allegations made by the Canadian and US governments about the role of Indian agents in assassination attempts on their soil. Canada has squarely accused India of orchestrating the assassination of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June 2023. The US, on the other hand, has hinted at New Delhi’s role in a foiled assassination plot on Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, another Khalistani leader on its soil.

‘20 terrorists killed in Pak since 2020’

The latest charges about assassinations pertain to the killing of individuals charged with serious and violent terror offences.

According to information collected by The Guardian, India has allegedly engineered the assassinations of almost 20 terrorists since 2020 in Pakistan alone. These killings were reportedly carried out by unknown gunmen.

Indian intelligence operatives, who reportedly spoke to The Guardian for the story, indicated RAW’s direct involvement in the killings while also suggesting the agency’s role in targeting Khalistan movement leaders both in the West and Pakistan as part of its foreign operations.

‘Handled by sleeper cells, executed by locals’

With sleeper cells in intelligence agents handling these killings, Pakistani investigators said a spate in the killings was seen in 2023 because of the recruitment of local criminals or poor by these cells to do the hit job. Jihadists were also hired by Indian agents for the purpose and told they were killing ‘infidels’, the report said.

Some of the terrorists killed as part of this operation were convicted Kashmiri militant Zahid Akhund, Shahid Latif, the commander of Jaish-e-Mohammed, Bashir Ahmad Peer, commander of militant outfit Hizbut Mujahideen and Saleem Rehmani, who has been on India’s wanted list.

Pakistani documents accessed by The Guardian claim, in the case of Akhund alias Zahoor Mistry, who was involved in the hijacking of an Air India flight, a RAW handler allegedly paid for information on Akhund’s movements and location over months. She later contacted him directly, pretending to be a journalist to confirm his identity. He was finally bumped off in March 2022 in Karachi by Afghan nations who were paid millions of rupees for the job, the report says. It claims that the assassins fled over the borders, but their handlers were arrested by Pakistani authorities.

UAE’s role

Pakistani agents say most of the killings were coordinated out of UAE, where RAW has sleeper cells who plan the operations step by step.

While criminals or poor individuals were paid millions of rupees for the killings, the transactions were mostly done via Dubai, the report says adding that meetings of RAW handlers overseeing the killings also took place in Nepal, the Maldives and Mauritius.

JeM militant Latif after several failed assassination attempts was killed by a 20-year-old Pakistani youth who was allegedly recruited by RAW in UAE, the report says. He was allegedly paid 1.5 million Pakistani rupees (nearly ₹4.2 lakh in Indian currency) to carry out the assassination.

The killing of Peer was also planned out of UAE “with transaction receipts from Dubai appearing to show payments of millions of rupees to the killers”, the report says.

What triggered the ops?

Two Indian intelligence agents The Guardian spoke to said the operation to eliminate terrorists abroad gained momentum after the Pulwama attack in 2019 in which over 40 CRPF men were killed in a suicide bomber attack by Jaish-e-Mohammed. The tragedy had occurred in the run up to the Lok Sabha polls.

After Modi came to power for a second term, the government set down to eliminate threats before they could plan attacks on India, the report says.

“After Pulwama, the approach changed to target the elements outside the country before they are able to launch an attack or create any disturbance,” one of the intelligence officials told The Guardian.

“We could not stop the attacks because ultimately their safe havens were in Pakistan, so we had to get to the source,” the operative added.

Mossad, KGB-inspired operations

The Indian operatives said New Delhi’s operations were inspired by Mossad and KGB, the spy agencies of Israel and the erstwhile Soviet Union respectively.

One of the operatives reportedly said RAW officials had also discussed at the PMO how India can take lessons from the killing of Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi.

“One senior officer said in a meeting that if Saudis can do this, why not us?” the Indian operative was quoted as saying.

Pannun and Nijjar ‘plots’

While New Delhi has denied any role in the killing of Sikh separatist Nijjar and on the alleged plot to assassinate Pannun, an Indian operative told The Guardian that India recently ordered the suspension of targeted killings in Pakistan after Canada and US made the allegations.

The two Indian operatives said that Khalistani leaders were also under the radar of Indian agents, mostly after Sikhs from Punjab arrived at Delhi’s borders to protest against the farm laws.

They said the Indian government suspected that Sikh activists living abroad were fuelling the protests in India.

The Pakistani investigators alleged that Paramjit Singh Panjwar, a high profile Khalistani leader based in Lahore was also killed by Indian agents.

MEA rubbishes allegations

The Guardian said India’s Ministry of External Affairs denied all the allegations calling them “false and malicious anti-India propaganda”. The ministry also reiterated External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s statement that carrying out targeted killings in other countries were “not the government of India’s policy”.

A former senior RAW official The Guardian spoke to said it is most likely that the killings were carried out by Islamabad, asserting that “extrajudicial killings” were not part of the agency’s remit.

Why was Pakistan silent?

Analysts The Guardian spoke to say Pakistani authorities have kept mum on the killings as most of those killed were known terrorists and aides of banned militant groups that Pakistan has already denied of sheltering.