ISLAMABAD:
A report by The Washington Post published on Tuesday revealed that India’s external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), ran a covert assassination program targeting approximately half a dozen people in Pakistan starting in 2021.
The investigation report, based on interviews with Pakistani and Indian officials and families, and a review of police records and other evidence, revealed an ambitious plan with operations similar to those carried out in North America.
One of the detailed cases was the attack on Amir Sarfraz Tamba. The Post described it as “the latest example of what Pakistani officials call a surprising development” in cross-border terrorism from India.
The report claimed that RAW, since 2021, started a methodical program targeting people deep inside Pakistan.
“India’s intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), has since 2021 deployed a methodical assassination program to kill at least half a dozen people deep inside Pakistan, according to Pakistani and Western officials,” the Post article said.
The article said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi presented himself as the most determined and confrontational leader against India’s adversaries since independence.
“Since last year, India’s relations with Western governments have been rocked by accusations that RAW officials also ordered the murder of Sikh separatists in Canada and the United States, operations that appeared to be a consequence of a proven campaign and refined for the first time in Pakistan”. The Post added.
The alleged program, according to Pakistani and Western officials, used local petty criminals or Afghan agents instead of Indian nationals to carry out the killings, warranting denial.
RAW agents reportedly worked through intermediaries, employing isolated teams to conduct surveillance, carry out assassinations, and funnel payments through informal banking networks known as hawalas.
“To aid the denial, RAW officers employed businessmen in Dubai as middlemen and deployed separate, isolated teams to surveil targets, execute assassinations and funnel payments from dozens of informal and unregulated banking networks known as hawalas established in multiple continents, according to Pakistani researchers.
However, The Post highlighted cases of “sloppy work and poorly trained contractors”, drawing parallels with RAW operations in the West.
“The Sikh separatists who were attacked in Canada and the United States, Hardeep Singh Nijjar and Gurpatwant Pannun, were also designated as terrorists by India, although Western officials and analysts have questioned the persuasiveness of Indian evidence against them,” he added.
The Post noted that ISI Director General Nadeem Anjum raised concerns about RAW’s activities to CIA Director William J. Burns in 2022, long before the Canadian and US allegations emerged.
“Our concerns arose independently of the US and Canadian investigations,” said a current Pakistani official. “Can India rise up peacefully? Our answer is no.”
However, Indian officials declined to comment, maintaining their long-standing stance of neither confirming nor denying involvement in such killings. India’s Ministry of External Affairs declined to comment on the Post article.
The article revealed that around the same time, a RAW officer in New Delhi, Vikash Yadav, allegedly orchestrated an assassination attempt on Sikh separatist Pannun in New York, as detailed in a US federal indictment.
Yadav reportedly ordered his agent, businessman Nikhil Gupta, to hire a local assassin. Like Ansari, Yadav operated remotely, appeared under time pressure and made comments suggesting a broader plan to eliminate multiple targets.
“But unlike Pakistan, U.S. prosecutors said the New York plot was quickly thwarted after Gupta unknowingly asked a DEA informant to introduce him to a hitman.”
“At the same time, Canadian officials said they had also uncovered an extensive Indian campaign to surveil, intimidate and even kill Sikhs. While criminal elements were employed, as in Pakistan, Indian diplomats stationed in Canada were also enlisted to monitor to members of the Sikh diaspora, according to Canadian officials, who cited the diplomats’ private electronic conversations and text messages. “It is unclear how those conversations were obtained.”
The report links RAW tactics in Pakistan to similar operations abroad, including an alleged assassination attempt on Sikh separatist Pannun in New York, described in a US federal indictment.
While RAW’s methods were successful in Pakistan, the report said, attempts in the West, such as the New York plot, were thwarted due to improved counterintelligence by Western law enforcement.
The article noted that Christopher Clary, a political science professor at the State University of New York at Albany, compared RAW’s track record of targeted assassinations to that of Israel’s Mossad. He noted that while the Mossad carried out successful assassinations in less developed countries, its agents were caught on hotel surveillance cameras during a 2010 operation against a Hamas leader in Dubai.
“A reading is [the RAW] They had been successful in Pakistan for a full year before they started developing this effort in the West,” Clary said. “But the tactics, techniques and procedures that worked quite well in Pakistan didn’t necessarily work in the West.”
The report highlighted an operation involving Shahid Latif. After his murder, Pakistani officials raided a Dubai safe house, uncovering intelligence but failing to capture the Indian agents allegedly involved.
The attack on an Indian Air Force station hampered diplomatic efforts between Modi and his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif.
The article reported that this time, RAW encountered a different type of reaction.
Upon his arrest, Umair admitted that he had been sent from Dubai to personally assassinate Latif after multiple failed attempts by his accomplices. According to two sources familiar with the case, Umair revealed the location of a safe house in Dubai, prompting Pakistani agents to raid the apartment.
While they uncovered valuable information, the two Indian occupants, Ashok Kumar Anand Salian and Yogesh Kumar, were not found. (Umair was not available for comment.)
Pakistani Foreign Secretary Muhammad Syrus Sajjad Qazi publicly accused India of orchestrating the killings and presented evidence of forged passports. India dismissed the claims as “false and malicious anti-India propaganda”.
“Until that time, Pakistan had rarely acknowledged Indian operations. But at a press conference in February, Pakistani Foreign Secretary Muhammad Syrus Sajjad Qazi showed scans of passports belonging to Salian and Kumar and accused them of running the murders of Latif and Riyaz a month earlier.”
The article notes that in April, Salian made his only public appearance in an interview with a pro-government Indian television channel.
Sitting in a sparsely furnished New Delhi apartment and wearing dark sunglasses inside, he claimed to be the owner of an ordinary business based in Dubai. Salian said he had hired a Pakistani worker at his internet cafe who could have acted independently and denied any connection to RAW.
“After Pakistan arrested him, they should have seen who his sponsor was in Dubai,” Salian said. “I feel offended that my data is highlighted and my reputation is damaged.”
Indian media reportedly celebrated the killings and their broadcasts glorified RAW’s reach.
Prime Minister Modi, during a campaign rally, hinted at India’s willingness to attack its enemies at home and abroad. Indian Home Minister Amit Shah, named in the Canadian investigations, commented: “Whoever committed the murders, what is the problem?”
Srinath Raghavan, an Indian military historian and former army officer, noted that the Modi government has promoted a narrative of a “New India,” using covert operations to project strength domestically and signal toughness toward Pakistan.
The former military officer was quoted as saying that the Modi government highlighted special forces raids inside Pakistan and promoted Bollywood films that glorify India’s undercover agents.
“The whole slogan is, ‘This is the New India,'” Raghavan said. “The Modi government came with the view that it is necessary to fight back, and it is necessary to give public signals that they are doing so. Their objective is to tell Pakistan that we are willing to come and hit hard, but it also has an internal component.”
However, analysts believe that Indian officials have clearly demonstrated its wide and lethal reach to both Pakistan and the Indian public.
