A report by The Washington Post on Tuesday revealed that India’s external intelligence agency allegedly conducted a methodical assassination program to kill about half a dozen individuals in Pakistan starting in 2021.
The six such killings, allegedly planned by the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), were said to have similarities to alleged operations carried out to assassinate Khalistan separatists in the United States and Canada.
The US-based newspaper quoted an identified official as saying that the killings in Pakistan were not carried out by Indian nationals but by Pakistani petty criminals or hired gunmen from Afghanistan. RAW allegedly hired Dubai businessmen as intermediaries. The businessmen were then assigned to separate teams to conduct surveillance, organize the killings and arrange payments through hawala, or informal transnational financial networks, the report said.
In 2022, one such alleged murder was that of Zahoor Mistry, who allegedly murdered an Indian passenger during the hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight in 1999.
The Washington Post reported that unidentified Pakistani officials told her that a woman who called herself Tanaz Ansari but was actually an Indian intelligence operative was involved in an operation to kill Mistry.
To track Mistry, the woman allegedly hired two Pakistanis and two Afghan nationals to shoot him. In addition, three others from Southeast Asia, Africa and West Asia were recruited to send at least $5,500 to those involved in the killings.
Citing unidentified Pakistani officials, The Washington Post also reported that a woman believed to be an Indian agent was also allegedly involved in the killing of Syed Khalid Raza, who was active in Kashmir in the 1990s.
The alleged mastermind of the 2016 Pathankot attack, Shahid Latif, was shot dead in Pakistan’s Sialkot district in October 2023, with reports at the time that the killing was carried out by unknown assailants.
A Washington Post report claimed that a group of men led by a laborer named Muhammad Umair shot and killed Latif.
Later, he added, Umair was arrested. After previous similar attempts failed, he is said to have admitted that he had been sent from Dubai to kill Latif. Umair also allegedly revealed the location of a safe house in Dubai, according to the newspaper.
In addition, Pakistani agents later allegedly broke into the safe house where they found intelligence, but did not find two Indians who were supposed to be tenants. Their names are Ashok Kumar Anand Salian and Yogesh Kumar.
India’s foreign ministry declined to respond to The Washington Post on these allegations.
Indian authorities have neither confirmed nor denied their role in specific assassinations in the past, but have said such killings were not part of official policy.
The allegations came eight months after RAW was also accused of being involved in an alleged plot to assassinate Khalistan separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun and the killing of another Khalistan separatist leader known as Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Earlier in April 2024, a report by The Guardian revealed that the Indian government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had “ordered the killing” on Pakistani soil.
In January 2024, then-Pakistani Foreign Minister Syrus Qazi exposed India’s “sophisticated and sinister” campaign of extraterritorial and extrajudicial killings, saying Islamabad had “credible evidence” linking Indian agents to the killing of two of them. its citizens on its soil.
In the report, the British daily claimed that Delhi had “murdered an individual in Pakistan”.
Citing intelligence agents, the publication said New Delhi had adopted a policy of targeting those it deemed hostile to India on foreign soil.
India’s infamous spy agency RAW, which is directly controlled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office, reportedly started carrying out assassinations abroad after the 2019 Pulwama attack.
Additionally, already strained by historic baggage and border disputes, relations between Pakistan and India hit new lows following the arrest of Indian spy Kulbushan Yadav in 2016 and the 2019 revocation of the special status of India’s Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
Trade between the two countries was throttled and diplomacy was frozen due to the Kashmir move, which was a blatant violation of international law.
For more than four years, Pakistan has conditioned the restoration of relations with its nuclear-armed neighbor on the restoration of the IIOJK’s special status.
