India behind killings of 6 people in Pakistan since 2021, reveals report

A report by The Washington Post disclosed on Tuesday that a methodical assassination programme was allegedly executed by India’s external intelligence agency to kill about half a dozen individuals in Pakistan from 2021 onwards.

Planned allegedly by the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), six such killings 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 the killings in Pakistan were carried out not by Indian citizens but by Pakistani petty criminals or hired shooters from Afghanistan.

Dubai-based businessmen were allegedly hired by the RAW as intermediaries. The businessmen were then put in separate teams to carry out surveillance, organise killings, and arrange for payments through hawala, or informal transnational financial networks, said the report.

In 2022, one such alleged killing was that of Zahoor Mistry, who was said to have murdered an Indian passenger during the hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight in 1999.

The Washington Post said it was told by unidentified Pakistani officials that a woman who called herself Tanaz Ansari but was in fact said to be an Indian intelligence official, was involved in the operation to kill Mistry.

To track Mistry, the woman allegedly hired two Pakistanis and two Afghan citizens to shoot him. Furthermore, three others from South East Asia, Africa and West Asia were also hired to send at least $5,500 to those involved in the killing.

Citing unidentified Pakistani officials, The Washington Post also reported that the woman, who is believed to be an Indian agent, was also allegedly involved in killing Syed Khalid Raza, who had been active in Kashmir in the 1990s.

The alleged mastermind of the 2016 Pathankot attack Shahid Latif was shot in the Pakistani district of Sialkot in October 2023 along with reports at the time saying that the killing was carried out by unknown assailants.

The Washington Post report claimed that a group of men led by a labourer named Muhammad Umair had shot Latif.

Later, it added, Umair was arrested. After previous such attempts failed, he was said to have admitted that he had been sent from Dubai to kill Latif. Umair also allegedly disclosed the location of a safe house in Dubai, as per the newspaper.

Moreover, Pakistani agents later allegedly broke into the safe house, where they found intelligence but did not find two Indians who were said to be the tenants. Their names are Ashok Kumar Anand Salian and Yogesh Kumar.

On the allegations, India’s foreign ministry declined to give a response to The Washington Post.

Indian authorities have neither confirmed nor denied their role in specific assassinations in the past, however, stated that such killings were not part of official policy.

These allegations came eight months after the RAW was also accused of being involved in an alleged plot to assassinate Khalistan separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun and in the killing of another Khalistan separatist leader known as Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Earlier in April 2024, a report by The Guardian revealed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Indian government “ordered killings” on Pakistan’s soil.

Exposing the “sophisticated and sinister” Indian campaign of extra-territorial and extra-judicial killings, Pakistan’s then-foreign secretary Syrus Qazi, in January 2024, said that Islamabad had "credible evidence" of Indian agents' link to the killings of two of its citizens on its soil.

In the report, the UK daily newspaper claimed that New Delhi “assassinated individuals in Pakistan”.

Quoting intelligence operatives, the publication had said that New Delhi adopted a policy of targeting those it considers hostile to India on foreign soil.

India’s notorious spy agency RAW, which is directly controlled by the office of PM Narendra Modi, allegedly began to carry out assassinations abroad following the 2019 Pulwama attack.

Moreover, already strained by historical baggage and border disputes, Pakistan and India's ties hit new lows after 2016's Indian spy Kulbushan Yadav arrest and the 2019 revocation of Indian Illegal Occupied Jammu and Kashmir's (IIOJK) special status.

Trade between the two countries was choked and diplomacy was frozen because of the Kashmir move, which was a blatant violation of international laws.

For more than four years, Pakistan has conditioned restoring ties with its nuclear neighbour to the restoration of IIOJK’s special status.