Friday, July 7, 2017

Karan Thapar Debunks India's Narrative on Kulbhushan Jadhav

Highly respected Indian journalist Karan Thapar has picked apart the Indian narrative on Kulbhushan Jadhav arrested by Pakistan while engaging in orchestrating terror attacks for RAW in Balochistan.

Writing for the Indian Express, Thapar has questioned the entire official story from New Delhi that claims that Jadhav is an innocent Indian citizen who was abducted by Pakistani operatives in Iran.  Let's examine the Indian claims and Thapar's questions on it:

Indian Agent Kulbhushan Jadhav
1. Jadhav's Two Passports:

Thapar asks why does Jadhav have two passports, one in his own name and another in the name of Hussein Mubarak Patel?

According to The Indian Express, the second passport was originally issued in 2003 and renewed in 2014. The passport numbers are E6934766 and L9630722. When asked, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson would only say that India needs access to Jadhav before he could answer. But why not check the records attached to the passport numbers? Surely they would tell a story?

Additionally, The Times of India claims that since 2007, Jadhav has rented a Bombay flat owned by his mother, Avanti, in the name of Hussein Mubarak Patel. Why would he use an alias to rent his own mother’s flat? Perhaps Jadhav changed his name after converting to Islam? But then, why did he deliberately retain a valid passport in his old name? Indeed, why did the government let him, unless he deceived them?

2. Abduction From Iran:

If Pakistan did abduct Jadhav, don’t we need to ask why, asks Thapar? Doesn’t that raise the question of what was so special about him that made them do this? After all, there are 4,000 Indians in Chabahar, Iran — and no one else has been abducted.


If Jadhav was indeed abducted from the Iranian soil, then why did India not pursue the matter with Iran, but, as the Indian foreign ministry spokesperson admitted, they don’t seem to have responded or, perhaps, even conducted an investigation yet. India seems to have accepted that. Odd, wouldn’t you say, asks Thapar?

3. Timing of Jadhav's Arrest:

Both The Indian Express and Asian Age suggest that Jadhav has links with the Pakistani drug baron Uzair Baloch who's also accused of terror in Pakistan.  Did Jadhav play dirty with him and get caught in a revenge trap set by the drug mafia? Given that Jadhav was arrested a month after Baloch was taken into custody by Pakistan, this could be part of the explanation?

4. Jadhav's Pursuit of RAW Employment:

The Indian Express has reported that between 2010 and 2012, Jadhav made three separate attempts to join the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). The paper suggests he also tried to join the Technical Services Division. What more do we know about this? Even if the media doesn’t, surely the government does? A. S. Dulat, a distinguished former chief of RAW, has unhesitatingly said Jadhav could be a spy. As he put it, if he (Dulat) was in the government, he would hardly admit it.

Summary: 

Almost all of the Indian and western media have either been toeing the Indian party line or keeping mum about Jadhav. Karan Thapar, as a real professional journalist that he is, is the first non-Pakistani journalist to question the entire Indian official story on Jadhav. He has completely dismantled India's entire defense case and essentially confirmed that Jadhav's confession on orchestrating murderous attacks in Pakistan is factual.

Here's Kulbhushan Jadhav's video confession:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVp62OinTeU




Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Why is India Sponsoring Terror in Pakistan? 

Indian Agent Kubhushan Yadav's Confession

Has Modi Stepped Up India's Covert War in Pakistan?

Ex India Spy Documents Successful RAW Ops in Pakistan

London Police Document Confirms MQM-RAW Connection Testimony

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor

Ajit Doval Lecture on "How to Tackle Pakistan" 

Chabahar Port


15 comments:

S KHAN said...

Why is PM Sharif not wanting to mention it to other world leaders?

Riaz Haq said...

Khan: "Why is PM Sharif not wanting to mention it to other world leaders? "

How do you know that?

Besides, India is doing a good job of bringing spotlight to Kulbhushan Jadhav in the ICJ, an international platform that receives wide coverage.

Uzair said...

Was Kulbhushan Jadhav, #1 terrorist brought or talked about with Senator McCain?
Did US involvement in the 1980s is causing terrorism today in Pakistan?
Pakistan is suffering from terrorism and given sacrifice with 69000 lives in American war on terror?
What about 20000 RAW agents in Pakistan?

Riaz Haq said...

Chilling account of captured spy’s fate
Aradhika Sekhon

An Indian Spy in Pakistan
by Mohanlal Bhaskar. Translated by Jai Rattan. Shrishti. Pages 329. Rs 295.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2004/20040222/spectrum/book8.htm

AN Indian Spy in Pakistan is the true account of Mohanlal Bhaskar, a spy and an Indian espionage agent in Pakistan. In his preface, Khushwant Singh says, "Not all the wealth of the world would persuade me to undergo what Mohanlal Bhaskar had to go through in the jails of Lahore, Kot Lakhpat, Mianwali and Multan. It is a miracle that after all that he lives to tell his tale, retain his sanity and teach in a school"

Bhaskar was on a mission to find out information about Pakistan’s nuclear bombs. Betrayed by one of his colleagues — a double agent who was also subsequently arrested and had to face his own demons. "Would he (Amrik Singh) be able to go back to his own country alive? And even if he succeeded in doing so would life be worth living? Would the Indian Government spare him? Such thoughts had driven him mad. The hunter was caught in his own net."

However, Bhaskar was condemned to prison and torture in an alien country where he was to spend 14 years of his life. Perhaps he would not have been allowed to emerge alive. His salvation came when he was exchanged for Pakistani spies held by India.

The novel, originally in Hindi, has been translated into English by Jai Rattan. Says Khushwant Singh "Jai Rattan’s translation from the original Hindi reads very well. I can recommend it to readers who have the stomach to take in suspense and horror"

Bhaskar got initiated into the profession of espionage when, fired with patriotism in 1965, he quoted the following lines in a speech on Bhagat Singh:

"We have eaten the grain cultivated with your blood,

It has nurtured the seeds of martyrdom in us"

While the audience applauded vociferously, one man questioned his sentiments to which Bhaskar responded, "If it’s a question of serving my country I will not be found wanting. I’m prepared to serve with my life and soul in whatever capacity you want me" And so silently that not even his family got to know of it, Bhaskar "quietly underwent circumcision and became a Muslim convert`85.even my wife was not aware of this momentous fact"

The novel is set at the time when "Ayub’s swagger had lost some of its bounce. Bhutto’s star was in ascendancy`85he had won over the people of Pakistan to himself, and was now hanging like Damocles’ sword over Ayub’s head`85martial law was proclaimed and the jails filled in no time`85It was during this period of turmoil that I had started making incursions into Pakistan"

The novel is full of descriptions of the torture that Bhaskar and other prisoners had to undergo at the hands of the Pakistani police and army. However, these accounts of inhuman torture are interspersed with descriptions of the many interesting people that Bhaskar came across in the Pakistani jails. People who were sadistic and cruel and people who showed unexpected kindness. For example he writes of Havaldar Abdul Rahman Khatak "who even in prison had helped me to keep up my morale`85his love and affection were like a fountain a desert which sprays cool, life giving water`85there was no hatred for me in his heart`85when I think of him my head is bowed in gratitude."

Another fact that Bhaskar brings to light time and again is the shared lineage and heritage of the people of the two warring nations. Raja Gul Anar Khan, who was considered to be "a living terror" traced his history back to Chandravanshi Rajputana while certain others had Sikhs as their forefathers but in turbulent times converted to Islam either by choice or necessity.


These and many other such colourful characters pepper the pages of the book, which in spite of its many printing errors, is an easy read.

Riaz Haq said...

Ex-Indian Army chief admits sponsoring terrorism in Balochistan

https://www.thenews.com.pk/archive/amp/461946-ex-indian-army-chief-admits-sponsoring-terrorism-in-balochistan

Recently retired Indian Army chief General Vijay Kumar Singh has admitted that India sponsored bomb blasts in Pakistan and doled out money to the separatist elements in Balochistan, a disclosure downplayed by the Indian media so far.
Buying silence of Kashmiri leaders in Indian held Kashmir and phone tapping inside India were also part of the sensitive report.The ex-army chief reveals this in an inquiry report prepared by India’s DG military operations shining light on activities of an army unit raised after the Mumbai attacks.
VK Singh last month announced a political alliance with BJP leader Narendra Modi who was responsible for the massacre of the Muslims in Indian Gujarat.A portion of the explosive report indicting the former army chief of terrorist activities inside Pakistan was downplayed by the Indian media that largely used ‘neighboring country’ as a reference and instead highlighted its parts relating to his activities of phone-tapping inside India and buying silence of politicians in Indian-held Kashmir through loads of cash.
The dirty tricks sanctioned by the top Indian general were carried out by Tactical Support Division (TSD), an Indian army unit raised after Mumbai attacks on the directives of the Defence Minister and National Security Adviser Shev Shankar Menon in order to “perform a particular task to secure borders and internal situation in the country.”
TSD consisted of six officers, five JCOs and 30 men and operated out of an unmarked two-storeyed building within the Delhi Cantonment dubbed the ‘Butchery’, that was a refurbished slaughterhouse of colonial times, The India Today reported.
“The division was headed by Colonel Munishwar Nath Bakshi, a tall, flamboyant intelligence officer in his early 40s, better known by an unusual nickname, ‘Hunny’,” it said.As the inquiry body was set up to investigate, Col Bakshi, a confidante of Gen Singh, got himself admitted in a mental hospital pretending that he was under serious mental stress.
Former Army Chief VK Singh allegedly used TSD, a clandestine collective of handpicked military intelligence personnel, to settle scores on both sides of the contentious Line of Control (LOC) between Pakistan and India, reported The India Today, in its October 7 edition.
Between October and November 2011, India Today reported this month, TSD had claimed money “to try enrolling the secessionist chief in the province of a neighbouring country” and “Rs1.27 crore (Indian currency) to prevent transportation of weapons between neighbouring countries”. In early 2011, TSD claimed an unspecified amount for carrying out “eight low-intensity bomb blasts in a neighboring country”, according to this weekly Indian magazine.
The Hindustan Times earlier reported about the covert operation inside Pakistan by TSD and quoted its former official stating it was assigned to nab Hafiz Saeed of Jamaatud Dawah but didn’t mention TSD’s involvement in terrorist activities in Pakistan as has been revealed through inquiry board.
Since there was no explicit mention of Pakistan, it didn’t emerge on the radar of Pakistani media. The News spoke to different journalistic sources in India privy to details who confirmed that it was about Pakistan.
India’s Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) Lt Gen Vinod Bhatia, who headed a Board of Officers’ inquiry under the direct orders of Gen Bikram Singh, current army chief, to review the functioning of the TSD submitted the report in March this year to the Indian government. While report is not being publicised, however, TSD was closed in December 2012.

Riaz Haq said...

Dirty Tricks: A politically ambitious general and a bungling govt put national security at risk

Former army chief Vijay Kumar Singh allegedly used the Technical Support Division (TSD), a clandestine collective of handpicked military intelligence personnel, to settle scores on both sides of the contentious Line of Control (LOC) between Pakistan and India.

Organising eight bomb attacks in a neighbouring country. Subsidising secession on enemy territory. Sponsoring 'friendly' ministers to destabilise an indigenous state government. Eavesdropping on senior government functionaries including India's defence minister. Former army chief Vijay Kumar Singh allegedly used the Technical Support Division (TSD), a clandestine collective of handpicked military intelligence personnel, to settle scores on both sides of the contentious Line of Control (LOC) between Pakistan and India. It was a secret war conceived by a reckless general between 2010 and 2012. And even 16 months after his unceremonious retirement, the general has not stopped fighting. Now the target is the Government, which is matching the general's tricks with its own. The collateral damage of the dirty war between the two is national security.
Barely 24 hours after his I-know-it-all proclamation on national television on September 23, that the Army had "transferred funds to all ministers in Jammu and Kashmir since 1947", Singh scurried for cover. His comments triggered a firestorm of indignant counter-allegations all the way from Delhi to Srinagar. The payouts, he insisted, were not "bribes" or for "political purpose", but part of the larger initiative to promote stability in the insurgency-ridden state. On September 27, just hours before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was to meet his counterpart Nawaz Sharif in New York, the tenuous peace was shattered yet again when terrorists struck with twin attacks on a police station and an army post in Jammu killing 12 persons including four soldiers and two policemen. The attack underscored ground realities in India's most sensitive state. The general's clarifications, an almost surreptitious monologue delivered to select reporters on the lawns of his Sector 30 home in Gurgaon, are however only a brief pause in his long shoot-and-scoot war that has simmered since the Government refused to amend his date of birth in 2011. This would not only have given him 10 more months in office but also changed the expected line of succession for the Army's top job.

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/general-vk-singh-bungling-government-national-security-at-risk/1/312040.html

Riaz Haq said...

#Mattis tells #India to moderate its support of #TTP #terrorism in #Pakistan. #Afghanistan #talibans #RAW

by Bharat Karnad in Hindustan Times

http://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/afghanistan-pakistan-and-the-f-16-mattis-has-to-hardsell-these-issues-on-his-visit-to-india/story-qvL9NS6wgl17sy756hE2WN_amp.html

"...as a former head of the US Central Command Mattis appreciates Pakistan’s indispensability as base for military operations to bring the Taliban in Afghanistan to their knees. But Islamabad has insisted that India’s role in Afghanistan be restricted and complained about the Indian support for the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) accused by Islamabad of terrorism in Pakistan. The RAW-TTP link was publicly revealed in April this year by its former commander, Ehsanullah Ehsan.

Mattis’ request that India moderate its support for TTP will put Delhi in a fix because TTP is useful as an Indian counterpart of the Hizbul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Toiba, and Jaish-e-Mohammad deployed by the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in Jammu & Kashmir. Severing relations with TTP will mean India surrendering an active card in Pakistan and a role in Afghanistan as TTP additionally provides access to certain Afghan Taliban factions. This, together with the Abdul Ghani regime’s desire for India’s presence and the tested friendship with Abdul Rashid Dostum and his Tajik-dominated ‘Northern Alliance’, ensures that no solution for peace in Afghanistan can be cobbled together without India’s help.

Mattis’ returning home empty-handed will not hurt relations with the US at all because there’s China; and the US needs India to strategically hinder it."

Riaz Haq said...

The Hindu editorial on the Jhadav episode:

“Most prison manuals in India mandate the removal of all metal objects and most accessories, while several prisoner-family meetings around the world take place across glass screens.”

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/unseemly-spat-kulbhushan-jadhav/article22288593.ece/amp/

Riaz Haq said...

#India being disingenuous, #SushmaSwaraj being melodramatic about #KulbhushanJadhav meeting with his wife, mother in #Islamabad #Pakistan

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/kulbhushan-jadhav-case-india-pakistan-relations-icj-i-spy-you-spy-5002907/


The current Indian NSA, Ajit Doval, doesn’t look like either Rahab (in Bible Old Testament) or (James) Bond but I am certain he wasn’t just lurking around Data Durbar in Lahore during his seven years in Pakistan, by his own admission, if I might add.

If Angela Merkel can find the National Security Agency infiltrating her BlackBerry, it would need a special kind of schmuck to think that India and Pakistan do not spy on each other or that while Pakistan is a villainous state, India is a member of The Religious Sisters of Mercy. That doesn’t take the conversation anywhere.

So, how should the conversation go? Perhaps one can begin with Doval’s own hard-nosed offensive realism. Personally, I like that because it eschews the sweet-mouthed nothingnesses of Track 2 and throws us into the deep end in Balochistan where, incidentally, we found Commander Kulbhushan Jadhav, or is it Hussain Mubarak Patel.

He is not the only one in Pakistan’s custody. There are others, too, being tried or sentenced on charges of spying. But Jadhav is the only one for whom India has invoked the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Clearly, he means a lot to India.


---------

In the ’90s, India and Pakistan would, with some regularity, charge some staff in the respective missions as spies (undercover postings) and declare them persona non grata. As with all things India and Pakistan, there was reciprocity. The irony is that once both sides managed to PNG all the “eyes” from their respective missions, they were left largely blind. Such is the nature of the game that you need yours over there so you have to tolerate theirs over here. At that point, the entire situation looks like the abusive marriage between Martha and George in Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

The Jadhav episode has to be seen at two levels. One, his activities were in line with India’s Modi-Doval policy of waging covert, sub-conventional war against Pakistan, using and exploiting the latter’s faultlines to get a force-multiplier effect. Two, there’s reason for Pakistan to give a high-profile treatment to the Jadhav case: India is no babe in the woods when it comes to “terrorism”.

That Jadhav is important for India is a no-brainer and can be evidenced by New Delhi approaching the ICJ. According to Pakistan’s foreign minister, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, there was also a proposal for a swap: “The terrorist who killed children in APS [Army Public School] in Peshawar is in Afghan custody. The National Security Adviser [NSA] told me that we can exchange that terrorist with the terrorist you have, which is Kulbhushan Jadhav.” He was speaking at the Asia Society in New York in September this year.

----

By Jadhav’s own account, after he revealed his identity and rank, he was treated with the protocol given an officer. Of course, India has alleged that his confession has been coerced. There’s nothing surprising about that statement. It was a good gesture to get him to meet his wife and mother. The media spectacle should have been avoided, given the unprofessional enthusiasm of TV channels in the Subcontinent. The MEA statement, however, was disingenuous about change of clothes and withdrawal of certain other items because that is standard operating procedure to ensure the visitors are not carrying, wittingly or unwittingly, any relaying devices.

Predictably, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected the MEA statement. Swaraj’s somewhat melodramatic statement to the Indian Parliament hasn’t helped either and a gesture that could have improved the situation has ended up generating another spat.

But specifics aside, here’s the corollary: How this will unfold hereon will depend on how matters are worked out away from the media’s gaze. If there’s enough give, there will be a take. If not, well, pass me on that toast.

Riaz Haq said...

Two ex chiefs of #India’s #spy agency #RAW did not want #KulbhushanJadhav recruited for covert ops in #Pakistan

https://www.thequint.com/news/politics/two-former-raw-chiefs-did-not-want-kulbhushan-jadhav-recruited-as-spy

Even as the controversy – tamasha, as it’s called in certain intelligence quarters – over Indian ‘spy’ Kulbhushan Jadhav refuses to die down, it has come to light that two former chiefs of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), who headed the organisation sometime over the past 15 years, had put their foot down against recruiting him for operations in Pakistan.

Speaking to The Quint, two former RAW senior officers, including one secretary who headed India’s external intelligence agency after 2008, said that the “proposal to recruit Jadhav for operations, whatever it’s worth, was ridiculous.”

----
This was among a few different attempts to launch renewed efforts to use human sources as “deep penetration” agents in Pakistan, where most intelligence assets, both HUMINT and SIGINT, were wound up during the prime ministership of IK Gujral in the late 1990s.

----
In any case, the recruitment was approved by a joint secretary as the supervisory officer. The RAW has a special unit which also undertakes parallel operations in certain crucial target countries for which it seeks out its own recruits.

The clearest evidence that Jadhav operated for the RAW came to the fore only after his cover – as a businessman who would frequent Iran, especially Chabahar – was blown and he was captured by the Pakistan, following which a former RAW chief, besides at least two other senior officers, called his Mumbai-based parents to “advise” them to not speak about their son’s case to anyone.

The other evidence was the second passport, with the name Hussein Mubarak Patel, that he carried, which shows that it was originally issued in 2003 and was renewed in 2014. The second passport (no L9630722) was issued in Thane on 12 May 2014 and was due to expire on 11 May 2024.

-------------

The RAW sources, both former and serving, said that Jadhav would “go on assignments off and on” and he would undergo the mandatory “debriefing” each time he returned to India from his “visits to Balochistan” or when he volunteered to share information. He also went through a three-month training programme when he learned methods and means to transmit and/or send information.

However, sources said, Jadhav’s undoing was based partly on his unprofessionalism and partly because he was not a “career spy.” He did the unthinkable – instead of waiting to communicate with his case officer face-to-face, Jadhav would sometimes use “means over the air waves.” The ISI intercepted some of the communications and were also able to pinpoint his location, making it relatively easy for them to track and then nab him, sources said.

“The botch-up was the result of unprofessionalism not only on the part of Jadhav but also his case officer,” one former special secretary, who conducted operations in some parts of West Asia, said. In this context, a former special secretary who handled the Pakistan desk till a few years ago, besides special operations in India’s neighbourhood, said that “Jadhav was no good” as he was “never in the thick of things, although he would claim he knew a lot of things and had sources in Pakistan.”

However, the former special secretary said that while RAW has many flaws, as a “matter of rule and unstated policy” no case officer should attempt to hire the services of an agent whose background in “tradecraft is not sound enough” and who is given to “bragging.”

In Jadhav’s case, while standard operating procedures may have been relaxed while recruiting him, sources said that his incarceration and the ambiguity surrounding his “work” does “have a lot of benefits.”

Riaz Haq said...

Two ex chiefs of #India’s #spy agency #RAW did not want #KulbhushanJadhav recruited for covert ops in #Pakistan

https://www.thequint.com/news/politics/two-former-raw-chiefs-did-not-want-kulbhushan-jadhav-recruited-as-spy

“The botch-up was the result of unprofessionalism not only on the part of Jadhav but also his case officer,” one former special secretary, who conducted operations in some parts of West Asia, said. In this context, a former special secretary who handled the Pakistan desk till a few years ago, besides special operations in India’s neighbourhood, said that “Jadhav was no good” as he was “never in the thick of things, although he would claim he knew a lot of things and had sources in Pakistan.”

However, the former special secretary said that while RAW has many flaws, as a “matter of rule and unstated policy” no case officer should attempt to hire the services of an agent whose background in “tradecraft is not sound enough” and who is given to “bragging.”

In Jadhav’s case, while standard operating procedures may have been relaxed while recruiting him, sources said that his incarceration and the ambiguity surrounding his “work” does “have a lot of benefits.”

Several seasoned RAW hands said that while Jadhav’s case officer (deputy secretary) and the latter’s supervisory officer (joint secretary) recruited him for “reasons best known to them,” the standard practice in spycraft would have been to “have a Baloch or a Pakistani national” do the “intelligence gathering job for us.” He added that it was “foolish for to set an Indian the task to obtain intelligence from a country as hostile as Pakistan.”

Sources said that soon after Jadhav was trapped and caught in March 2016, a few records relating to payments made to him were destroyed, leaving “no trace” of his existence as far the RAW is concerned. But a former agency chief, who retired in the closing years of the previous decade, said, “No professional agency should have recruited him. I cannot even imagine that Jadhav was because it has been a disaster.”

He asked pointedly: “Every operation should have an objective. What huge intelligence or foreign policy objective was to be achieved by tasking Jadhav to operate in Balochitan?”

Riaz Haq said...

#Balochistan Separatist Leader Jumma Marri Says in #Moscow He Now Supports #Pakistan and Blames #India for Hijacking Struggle: #CPEC #China #Russia #Afghanistan https://sputniknews.com/interviews/201802231061939477-balochistan-korybko-jumma-marri-baloch/ … via @SputnikInt

Dr. Jumma Marri Baloch, a prominent leader of the Baloch independence movement and designer of the separatist flag, recently renounced his decades-long campaign against Pakistan while attending a Pakistani Unity Day event last weekend in Moscow, where Sputnik’s Andrew Korybko had the chance to conduct a brief interview with him.

Sputnik: Tell us little about yourself: how and why did you come to Russia, how long have you been here and what do you do presently?

Jumma Marri Baloch: I think everybody who was interested about the Baloch affairs might know my struggle to free Balochistan, which is not hidden from anyone. I will not be wrong if I say that I am from those people who were always on the forefront of the Baloch freedom struggle — many of the readers might know the fact that the Free Balochistan flag, which is currently very popular and is in use, was designed by me.
----
For the sake of Free Balochistan I left my home, Pakistan, province, tribe and even my father and brothers. In 1979, due to the Balochistan movement I, along with my family, left for Afghanistan and settled there. Since 2000 I am in self-exile in Moscow.

--


Sputnik: Who is behind the so-called "Free Balochistan" Campaign, what are they aiming for, and how do they operate?


Jumma Marri Baloch: There are no doubts that India is squarely behind the unrest in Balochistan. I am a witness to it from within: India tries to counter Pakistan's support for Kashmir and India wants to pay Pakistan in the same coin by supporting a few so-called Baloch leaders who are enjoying very luxurious lifestyles in such expensive cities as Geneva and London. These people are sending some money to create unrest in Balochistan like blowing electricity supplies, mining bridges and putting mines in the roadside to keep the money supplies open from Delhi.

---

Sputnik: What is the reason why some international media have been repeating the claims of Baloch separatists and sometimes even lobbying on their behalf, and how does this relate to global fake news industry?


Jumma Marri Baloch: No international media pays any attention to these Baloch separatists except Indian media that are working closely with the Indian intelligence who are paid to cover their paid agents working as Baloch freedom fighters. These are all Indian attempts to silence the voices of the Kashmir struggle for freedom. I guarantee if Pakistan gives even the slightest hint to the Indians that they will stop supporting the Kashmiri, the Hindus will dump the Baloch next day down in a sewage canal.


Sputnik: What is the most effective way to debunk these falsehoods and show people the truth about Balochistan and its native people's relationship to the rest of Pakistan?


Jumma Marri Baloch: Develop the awareness of people about the negative propaganda, through education and empowering the local people to run their affairs without intervention. The Baloch must be respected, first of all, on their own soil, then such negative propaganda will have no effects. The majority of the Baloch people have no problem with Pakistan, but they have questions to the government as every normal citizen of any country around the world.

Riaz Haq said...

Why India must restructure RAW, recruit agents from different backgrounds
Like the US, India should have a wall of honour for agents who sacrifice their lives to ensure there is no war with Pakistan, writes Jay Desai.

https://theprint.in/yourturn/subscriberwrites-why-india-must-restructure-raw-recruit-agents-from-different-backgrounds/702161/

So now it is high time that the RAW starts recruiting people from different educational backgrounds. This will increase efficiency in a great manner which is badly needed. Another problem is that RAW has no website of its own. For example, the CIA has its own website. The CIA website includes the literature relevant to a scholar. On the CIA’s website, one book is notable, called ‘The Book of Honor: The Secret Lives and Deaths of CIA Operatives’. It is a book by the journalist Ted Gup.

The book basically talks about these CIA operatives who died in action while defending the interests of the USA. In CIA headquarters at Virginia, there exists a wall of honour, a marble wall with black stars engraved, where each represents a fallen CIA agent and in a bullet proof glass case is kept ‘the book of honor’.

The book does consist of a list for each year. It is the year on which a CIA officer fell, where more than 50% cases of anonymous stars are present to conceal identity. There was an Indian national, Ravindra Kaushik, RAW agent in Pakistan, who penetrated the Pakistani Army and became a Major, during years of service to the nation; he saved the lives of 20,000 Indian soldiers. In 1983, he was caught and subsequently incarcerated. He died at a Pakistani jail in November 2001.

Why should not there be something in India similar to a wall of honour for such people who became martyrs? After all, these individuals make the supreme sacrifice acting as India’s first line of defence to ensure no war takes place between India and Pakistan. True, Kaushik was only a source and not an employee of the RAW. But that should not be the criteria by indicating that we will never acknowledge fallen sources like him (including many sources similar to Kaushik). Arthashastra does recommend that a spy should be rewarded for his or her service to the nation.

RAW has increased India’s influence across the world. The birth of Bangladesh from East Pakistan, growing influence inside Afghanistan, adding Sikkim in 1975 to the Indian State, security of the Indian programme on nuclear weapons, success of African liberation movement have all been the big success stories of RAW. On 22 October 2020, the RAW chief made a visit to Nepal. He arrived on a special aircraft of the Indian Air Force and met then-PM K.P. Sharma Oli as well as the avowed opposition Communist leader, former PM Baburam Bhattarai.

In India’s strategic imagination, Nepal is very important. Nepal, with the high Himalayas between India and China, is critical for India to get right as part of the neighborhood. India-Nepal relations are through open borders and from a security perspective it should never be forgotten that the Pakistanis used Kathmandu to hijack the Indian commercial flight IC814. So this plane ultimately landed in Kandahar, Afghanistan; Government’s hard time.

So a stable, peaceful Nepal is vital which is not vulnerable to external forces that are inimical to Indian interest, for example China. If Nepal is unstable, its institutions are weak, then it has every possibility of becoming a fertile ground for external forces.

Riaz Haq said...

The authors (Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark of Spy Stories) also conclude that Kulbhushan Jadhav, the former Naval commander accused of planning terror attacks and awaiting an appeal on a death sentence in Pakistan, was an “asset” but not an “officer” for the Indian intelligence agencies, who had been “trapped” by Pakistan’s ISI. India has flatly denied those charges, and said that Mr. Jadhav retired from service in 2001 and was kidnapped by Pakistani agencies in Iran. However, the book says many Indian intelligence agencies had shown interest in recruiting Mr. Jadhav due to his access from Iran to Pakistan, and that he was lured by the ISI to Karachi to meet a Baloch contact.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/two-foreign-journalists-had-post-pulwama-back-channel-role-between-india-pakistan-says-book/article35861441.ece


“According to some of those we interviewed in IB (Intelligence Bureau), R&AW and Indian Navy as well as ISI and military intelligence in Pakistan, many agencies were suddenly interested in a man like [Jadhav] who had the wherewithal to travel with cover….There was already plenty of R&AW investment in terms of assets and officers in Iranian Baluchistan and at Chabahar, but to have Jadhav, who could travel widely, and even to get down to Karachi, would make him exceptional,” Mr. Levy said in an interview. “Not as an officer, trained, deployed and backed up by an institution — but as an asset, we were told, a person who reported back to handlers and supervisors, with [his] insights,” he added.

Ahmed said...


Dear Sir Riaz

Thank you for your post, Sir is it true that the case of Indian spy Kulbushan Yadav was taken to ICJ(International Court of Justice)?

Sir do you really think ICJ(International Court of Justice) will do justice with this case?

Regards,