India assassinated individuals inside Pakistan as part of a wider strategy to eliminate terrorists living on foreign soil, The Guardian reported. The report is based on interviews with intelligence officials in both India and Pakistan and states how India’s foreign intelligence agency—RAW— allegedly began to carry out assassinations abroad as part of an emboldened approach to national security after 2019.
The report, citing two Indian intelligence officers, that states Research and Analysis Wing’s (RAW’s) focus on extremists abroad was triggered by the Pulwama attack of 2019, when a suicide bomber targeted a CRPF convoy in the Kashmir’s city along a national highway. Fourty CRPF soldiers were killed in the attack for which Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed had claimed responsibility.
In a response to The Guardian, the India’s Ministry Of External Affairs denied all the allegations, reiterating an earlier statement that they were “false and malicious anti-India propaganda”. The MEA emphasised a previous denial made by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar that targeted killings in other countries were “not the government of India’s policy”.
The report states India has drawn inspiration to carry out audacious attacks on terrorists inside foreign lands from intelligence agencies such as Israel’s Mossad and Russia’s KGB. Both the spy agencies have been linked to extrajudicial killings on foreign soil.
Over the years, the allegations have surfaced that Delhi has implemented a policy of targeting those it considers hostile.
Of late India has also been accused by foreign countries including Canada of involvement in the murders of Khalistani terrorist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar and also of a failed assassination attempt on another Khalistani activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.
India has been accused of carrying out almost 20 killings on Pakistan soil since 2020.
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, the report said.
The report quoting Pakistani investigators said, these deaths were orchestrated by Indian intelligence sleeper-cells mostly operating out of the United Arab Emirates.
