On November 21 (local time), The Intercept published a report accusing the Indian government’s intelligence agency, RAW (Research and Analysis Wing), of assassinating Sikh and Kashmiri activists living on foreign lands. The basis of their accusations was, wait for it, intelligence documents provided by PAKISTAN! Yes, the same Pakistan is known for harbouring and nourishing terrorists and criminals aimed at harming India. However, India’s involvement in any extra-juridical killings is highly unlikely.
The authors of The Intercept’s report, Murtaza Hussain and Ryan Grim, claimed that “leaked” Pakistani intelligence assessments revealed a series of threats from RAW against individuals living in Pakistan. The “Pakistani intelligence” claimed the Indian agency is collaborating with local criminals and dissidents to kill and attack individuals wanted by the Indian government.
The targets include those supporting armed insurgency in Kashmir and Sikh “activists” who want Khalistan. In other words, The Intercept asserted that the recent killings in Pakistan by “unknown assailants” were carried on the behest of RAW.
Furthermore, The Intercept’s report claimed that information provided by their source in “Pakistani intelligence” was in sync with the accusations laid down by the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, in the murder of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
The report suggested that the leaked documents provided additional evidence that supported the claim that India has been conducting a transnational assassination program against its political enemies. It was further claimed that RAW is planning more such assassinations in Lahore and Pakistan. Those on India’s agency’s target include Lakhbir Singh Rode and his son Bhagat Singh. Notably, Rode is a relative of Khalistani terrorist Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. In 2021, Gurmukh Singh, the son of Jasbir Singh Rode, was arrested by the National Investigating Agency (NIA) for receiving tiffin boxes loaded with explosives from his uncle, Lakhbir Singh Rode, in Pakistan and distributing them within Indian territory.
Another unimaginable accusation that The Intercept came up with was that the information provided to them revealed India was operating from a militant training camp in Afghanistan. India, a country that is against any terrorist activity anywhere in the world, is accused of operating from a terrorist camp! Nothing more bizarre can come out of that report, or could there be more?
Furthermore, The Intercept claimed as per the documents they accessed that were leaked from the Pakistani Intelligence Bureau, there were concerns raised that Indian intelligence agents based in UAE and Afghanistan were being activated to carry out more operations in Pakistan.
What is interesting in the report is the clear panic visible across the “intelligence networks” or actually the conspiracy theorists about the assassinations that have been happening in Pakistan and other parts of the world. Coincidentally, some of those killed were wanted by India.
However, that does not mean a democratic country like India would indulge in any unlawful activity. Notably, the Indian leadership is meticulous about its image on the international platform. Any action that may go against that image would be highly unacceptable not only by the Indian leadership but also by the people of India.
The assassinations are nothing but failures of the local intelligence and law enforcement agencies of those respective countries where the incidents happened. Recent reports suggested Nijjar’s killers were wearing turbans. Furthermore, the investigating agencies in Canada did not check the security cameras for weeks after the murder, showing how lenient they were about the whole matter.
There is one more interesting aspect of the report by The Intercept. One of the authors, Murtaza Hussain, spoke volumes of the Pakistani intelligence in the report. However, in September 2023, he literally called Pakistani officials’ liars’ on social media. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), he said, “This is one reason I would argue The Intercept’s reporting on Pakistan has been so important. Pakistani officials literally just lie. Not even half-truths or quarter-truths this is straight-up lying. It is based on an arrogant contempt for the public.” At that time, he was quoting a Washington Post report that cited the caretaker Prime Minister of Pakistan, who denied the allegations that Pakistan was selling ammunition to Ukraine.
It is unclear if Hussain had a change of heart that he started believing Pakistanis or if he just did some monkey-balancing for his previous reactions to X.
India has been consistently urging countries like Canada and Pakistan to extradite criminals, including terrorists and gangsters, to India. However, both countries have ignored the requests multiple times. When some of these criminals were killed over internal scuffles, the blame went to India, most probably to shadow the incompetency of their own law enforcement and intelligence agencies. In the end, Baby, Tiger, and movies like those are fiction. They have nothing to do with the reality. It looks like a Bollywood fan sitting in Pakistani intelligence created a script that he wanted to sell to Indian filmmakers but someone leaked it as “intelligence against India”.
OpIndia’s detailed coverage of Canada’s accusations against India in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar can be checked here.
OpIndia’s reports on assassinations carried out by unknown assailants in Pakistan can be checked here.
