A detailed report in The Guardian, London, alleging that India has rolled out a pre-emptive policy of targeting terrorists based in Pakistan, has been rubbished by the External Affairs Ministry as part of “false and malicious propaganda against India”. The newspaper has alleged that at least 20 terrorists based in Pakistan were killed in the last two years on directives of Indian spy agency RAW’s “sleeper cells” based in UAE. The newspaper has reported that the Narendra Modi government has changed its anti-terror policy after the heinous Pulwama terror attack in February 2019, and Indian operatives based outside India have been given a free hand to deal with terrorists taking shelter in Pakistan and other countries. The newspaper report cites instances of the killings of Lashkar and Jaish terrorists in Pakistan with one killed inside a mosque and another given poisonous food in jail. Already Pakistani media is rife with speculations over how Indian agents carried out these killings on Pakistani soil. The British newspaper report claims that its reporters spoke to several retired RAW officials and Pakistani ISI officers while collating evidence. The report claims, that Indian operatives sitting in UAE, Nepal and Mauritius carried out these killings by giving millions of rupees to the perpetrators.
The Guardian report mentions in detail how Lashkar terrorists like Shahid Latif, Zahid Akhund, Riaz Ahmed, Hizbul terrorist Basheer Ahmed Pir and Salim Ahmed Rehmani, and Khalistani terrorist Parmajit Singh Panjwar were killed in Pakistan. Zahid Akhund alias Zahoor Mistry was among the terrorists who hijacked the Indian Airlines plane to Kandahar in 1999. Shahid Latif was the mastermind of the terror attack on Pathankot air base in 2016. In some of the cases, the newspaper reported, the killers were Islamic terrorists from TTP and Afghanistan who were told that they are killing a ‘kaafir’. Already, there is growing demand in Pakistani media that Pakistani ISI officials who gave confidential information to the reporters should come forward and tell the truth to the nation. External affairs minister S. Jaishankar has time and again said that killing terrorists on foreign soil has never been part of India’s policy, though India has admitted that its armed forces carried out surgical and air strikes inside Pakistan after terror attacks. The first surgical strike took place in Pak Occupied Kashmir after the terror attack in Uri in 2016.
The air strike took place at Balakot inside Pakistan in the aftermath of 2019 Pulwama terror attack. More than 300 terrorists were killed in the IAF air strike on Balakot. In his election meetings in Bihar and Rajasthan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “in the New India, we are striking inside enemy’s territory (ghar me ghus kar ke maarta hain)”. In cases like the killings of terrorists in Pakistan, normally shreds of evidence are fudgy, though The Guardian in its report says that RAW and the National Security Adviser directly report to the Prime Minister. Naturally, Pakistan will start making a lot of noise based on Modi’s claim of ‘ghar me ghus kar maarte hain‘ and blame India for extra-territorial killings, but this is not going to make much of a difference. Neither the Pakistan government, nor its ISI and army have concrete evidences to prove that Indian operatives carried out killings on its soil. On its part, Indian government will rubbish these allegations. The truth about who killed the terrorists in Pakistan and how, will never be known. I personally feel, there is nothing wrong if the government gives a free hand to its agencies. The handlers of Mumbai terror attacks are sitting in Pakistan. India has sent dozens of dossiers to Pakistan for taking action against them, but nothing happened. What did Pakistan do? From Azhar Masood, Hafiz Saeed to Syed Salahuddin, all these terror masterminds are openly active in Pakistan hatching conspiracies to carry out big terror attacks inside India. What action has Pakistan taken against these masterminds? How Narendra Modi handles such matters, can be learnt from what he told me in ‘Aap Ki Adalat’ show in 2009 after the Mumbai terror attacks. He was then the Chief Minister of Gujarat. Modi said, ‘after Pakistan carried out terror attacks, our Prime Minsiter went to the US and started crying ‘Obama Obama’ ‘. “Is that the manner in which we should act? The neighbours attack us and we go to America and say, ‘Keep Pakistan away from us’ ?”, he said. When I asked Modi what measures should India take? Modi’s words still ring in my ears even today. He said, “we much teach Pakistan in the language it understands”. This has been proved in the last 10 years of Modi rule. Pakistan is getting the reply in the language which it understands.
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