Thursday, January 21, 2021

Pulwama Attack: Did Modi Order False Flag Operation in Kashmir?

On 14 February 2019, a terrorist attack near Pulwama in Kashmir killed 40 Indian soldiers. It has now come to light that Indian TV anchor Arnab Goswami had prior knowledge of it. He wrote in a WhatApp message to BARC TV rating company head Pratho Dasgupta on that day that his channel was “20 min ahead on the biggest terrorist attack of the year in Kashmir”. "This attack we have won like crazy", he added. Arnab Goswami has close ties to the nation's Hindu Nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Mr. Modi's government implicated Pakistan and ordered air strikes in Balakot.  These recent disclosures are raising serious questions about Pulwama and its aftermath. Was this a false flag operation carried out by Indian intelligence agencies to create a pretext for an attack on Pakistan? Was the killing of Indian soldiers in Pulwama orchestrated by the Modi government to win India's general elections that soon followed in April-May 2019? Could this reckless act by India's leader have escalated into a full-scale nuclear war with Pakistan, leading to hundreds of millions of deaths? 

Goswami's WhatsApp Messages on Pulwama Attack


Arnab Goswami and Pratho Dasgupta have been indicted in Indian state of Maharashtra for manipulating television ratings of Republic TV. As part of the prosecution's case, Mumbai police have submitted evidence that includes transcripts of WhatsApp conversations between Goswami and Dasgupta which suggest that the former had prior knowledge of the Pulwama terrorist attack

The transcript shows Goswami writing to Dasgupta on Feb 14, 2019, the day of the Pulwama attack: “Sir 20 min ahead on the biggest terrorist attack of the year in Kashmir....only only channel with a ground presence”. It begs the question: How did Goswami's channel manage to have its media team in Pulwama at the time of the attack without prior knowledge of what was going to happen? Who told them about it? 

In addition to Pulwama attack, Goswami also had knowledge of Balakot bombing in Pakistan that Modi ordered on February 26, 2019. This again raises the question: How did Goswami learn about it? 

This must be seen in the context of India's history of false flag operations, starting with Ganga Fokker aircraft hijacking in 1971. According to ex RAW official RK Yadav, the 1971 Fokker hijacking to Lahore was orchestrated by India's RAW. The staged hijacking was used by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as pretext for banning overflights of Pakistani passenger planes in 1971. Here's what Yadav wrote in his book:  

"There was an agent of R&AW-Hashim Qureshi in Srinagar.......R&AW persuaded Hashim Qureshi to work for them.....After the plan was given final shape, on January 30, 1971, Hashim Qureshi along with another operative Ashraf Qureshi, his relative, was allowed to hijack a Fokker Friendship plane Ganga of Indian Airlines with 26 passengers on board, to take the plane to Lahore airport. R&AW allowed him to carry a grenade and a toy pistol inside the plane. Pakistani authorities at Lahore airport allowed the plane to land when they were informed that it had been hijacked by National Liberation Front activist militants of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. All India Radio soon made broadcast of this hijacking and the whole world was informed that the Pakistan Government was behind this hijacking...The incident overtly gave India the right opportunity which was planned by R.N. Kao, to cancel the flights of Pakistan over its territory which hampered the plans of Yahya Khan to send its troops by air to curb the political movement of Mujib in East Pakistan".  

After reading the WhatsApp transcripts of Goswami's conversation with Dasgupta, it is hard to escape the conclusion that both Pulwama and Balakot were orchestrated and timed by Mr. Modi's Hindu Nationalist government to ensure BJP's win in 2019 elections. These were reckless actions that could have escalated into a major nuclear war between India and Pakistan. It was Pakistan's measured response to Indian provocation that prevented widespread destruction and the deaths of hundreds of millions of innocent people in South Asia and elsewhere. 


18 comments:

Riaz Haq said...

#India released confession video of a man purported to be "Ajmal Kasab" after the #Mumbai #terror attack. It raises serious questions, particularly about his #Mumbaikar accent and the fact that he seeks forgiveness from "Bhagwan", not Allah. #FalseFlag https://www.riazhaq.com/2015/01/mumbai-attack-confession-rare-jihadi.html

Riaz Haq said...

Ex RAW official RK Yadav on Fokker Hijacking in Srinagar Page 227 of Mission RA&W::

There was an agent of R&AW-Hashim Qureshi in Srinagar.......R&AW persuaded Hashim Qureshi to work for them.....After the plan was given final shape, on January 30, 1971, Hashim Qureshi along with another operative Ashraf Qureshi, his relative, was allowed to hijack a Fokker Friendship plane Ganga of Indian Airlines with 26 passengers on board, to take the plane to Lahore airport. R&AW allowed him to carry a grenade and a toy pistol inside the plane. Pakistani authorities at Lahore airport allowed the plane to land when they were informed that it had been hijacked by National Liberation Front activist militants of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. All India Radio soon made broadcast of this hijacking and the whole world was informed that the Pakistan Government was behind this hijacking...The incident overtly gave India the right opportunity which was planned by R.N. Kao, to cancel the flights of Pakistan over its territory which hampered the plans of Yahya Khan to send its troops by air to curb the political movement of Mujib in East Pakistan.

https://www.riazhaq.com/2015/05/ex-indian-spy-documents-raws-successes.html

samir sardana said...

Like I Said in my post in the link "http://www.riazhaq.com/2020/10/nawaz-sharifs-anti-military-rhetoric.html" on on October 20, 2020 at 3:07 AM and 6:15 AM

100% False Flag !

As an aside -If Ornoob Goo-swami was tipped off and he left a forensic trail on "WHATAPP" it means that the GOI WANTED THE WORLD TO KNOW !

With such strategic thinking and alliances and partners - India is doomed ! dindooohindoo

Riaz Haq said...

"While the mature handling of the crisis by Pakistan’s leadership averted the worst-case scenario, the fact that the Modi government orchestrated the Pulwama false flag to gain domestic political advantage showcased jingoistic mindset ruling New Delhi."


https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/778468-modi-s-india


Coming on the heels of the busting of India’s biggest clandestine disinformation operation by the EU DisinfoLab barely a month ago, Goswami-gate has shown a fresh light on the dirty games that the Hindutva-inspired Modi government has been playing ever since he ascended the throne in New Delhi in 2014.


The exchange of explosive Whatsapp chats between the firebrand Republic TV anchor, Arnab Goswami, and BARC CEO Partho Dasgupta is replete with all manner of incriminating evidence.

The revelation that Goswami knew “something big will happen” three days ahead of the IAF warplanes flew into Pakistan and dropped their payload in Balakot must send shivers down the spine of all those who remain invested in peace and stability in one of the world’s highly volatile regions.

A plain reading of the texts makes it abundantly clear that the Modi government took the risk to upset the bilateral status quo with a keen eye on the potential electoral gains that such an act of brinkmanship was presumed to accrue.

As Pakistan mulled options to respond to the Indian aggression, the air was thick with a possibility of hostilities breaking out, an event that could have threatened the nuclear threshold.

While the mature handling of the crisis by Pakistan’s civil and military leadership did avert the worst-case scenario, the fact that the Modi government orchestrated the Pulwama false flag to gain domestic political advantage showcased the kind of jingoistic mindset that is ruling New Delhi.

The strategic restraint shown by Pakistan drew widespread appreciation from world capitals. The swift counteraction by the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) restored the balance of aerial power and the return of the captured IAF pilot marked a diplomatic victory for Islamabad.

The events that happened in a span of weeks, following the Pulwama incident, presented a sharp contrast in the thinking of the Pakistani and Indian leadership as well as their respective approaches to regional peace and stability.

The second term of Narendra Modi as India’s prime minister has been marked by a series of actions that are ideologically driven with an express aim to rethink the idea of India in contravention of its founding-fathers’ ideals.

If the BJP possessed a little over 20 percent of votes in the early 1990s, today its hold on the Indian electorate is complete, a fact evidenced by its strongest ever showing in the polls in 2019 that gave Modi a landslide victory. Modi’s takeover of the party has also been complemented by a transformation of its internal political culture: from being a right of center party, the BJP has come a long way off -- becoming the mouthpiece and champion of the Hindutva ideology that seeks to reimagine India as a Hindu-only country.

Even from the standards of Indian politics of the right, the BJP’s old guard such as Atal Bihari Vajpayee appears to be towering personalities with a clear understanding of the world and the need for peaceful coexistence with neighbouring countries such as Pakistan.

Known for his role in the Gujarat pogrom in 2002, Modi’s political journey has witnessed tremendous growth from the periphery to the center of Indian politics. He successfully employed religious narrative wrapped in a jargon that harkened back to the mythical glorious past of the ‘great Hindu nation’, a status ‘denied’ to them firstly by Muslim invaders and then the imperialist British. He presented the BJP as the sole voice of the Hindus, working to make India a Hindu-only country. In the process, he was shrewd enough to cut all political rivals out of competition that could challenge his rising ascendancy in the party.

Riaz Haq said...

UAE Ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba in #WashingtonDC: #UAE played part in #India-#Pakistan cease-fire. Union of 7 sheikhdoms on #Arabian Peninsula home to #AbuDhabi and #Dubai has a large expatriate workforce of Indians & Pakistanis. #Kashmir #Modi #ImranKhan https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/ambassador-uae-played-part-in-india-pakistan-cease-fire/2021/04/15/eb4cb4a4-9dde-11eb-b2f5-7d2f0182750d_story.html?tid=ss_tw


“At least we want to get it (India-Pakistan ties) to a level where it’s functional, where it’s operational, where they are speaking to each other, where there’s lines of communication,” al-Otaiba said. “That’s our goal.”
--------

Speaking in a video released Wednesday by Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, al-Otaiba acknowledged an Emirati role “in bringing the Kashmir escalation down” between the two nuclear-armed nations.

“We try to be helpful where we have influence with two different countries,” al-Otaiba told H.R. McMaster, a former national security adviser to Trump. “India and Pakistan was the most recent one.”

In February, India and Pakistan agreed to adhere to a 2003 accord over the heavily militarized Himalayan region that had been largely ignored since its signing. Troops regularly exchanged artillery, rocket and small-arms fire across the so-called Line of Control, killing hundreds including civilians.

Kashmir has been divided but claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan since almost immediately after the two countries’ creation in 1947. They have fought three wars against each other, two directly dealing with the disputed region. India in 2019 stripped Kashmir of its semi-autonomy and took direct control over it, sparking unrest.


The sudden cease-fire in February came as a surprise, especially given Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist agenda and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s own comments about India.

The two sides had reached the brink of war in 2019 after what India called a preemptive strike against militants blamed for a suicide bombing in Indian-controlled Kashmir that killed 40 Indian troops. Pakistan retaliated, shooting down a MiG-21 fighter jet and capturing its pilot, whom they later released.

That the UAE could be a trusted interlocutor isn’t surprising. The federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula home to Abu Dhabi and Dubai has a large expatriate workforce of Indians and Pakistanis across both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Emirati sheikhs maintain close relations to both countries because of it.


In Pakistan, a security official told The Associated Press the UAE did play a role in brokering the cease-fire. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn’t authorized to brief journalists, declined to say where these meetings took place.

An Indian security official told the AP the two countries had decided to keep the talks “secret and low key.” But he described the UAE’s role as providing “nothing but the venue” in Dubai. The official also spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn’t authorized to talk to reporters.

The UAE, which hosts 3,500 American troops and the U.S. Navy’s busiest foreign port of call, remains a close partner in the region, having sent troops at one point to Afghanistan. The UAE has tried to trade on its efforts to host peace talks between Ethiopia and Eritrea, as well as its recognition of Israel, to bolster those ties. It hopes to purchase advanced F-35 fighter jets from the U.S. as part of a $23 billion sale.

Riaz Haq said...

According to the authors (Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark of Spy Stories), ISI officials disclaimed all knowledge of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) attack in Pulwama within hours of the incident, which was apparently planned in Afghanistan’s Helmand, and not Pakistan. Mr. Doval and Deputy NSA Rajinder Khanna disbelieved the Pakistani messages, however, and carried out the Balakot air strikes to “humiliate the Pakistan military”, the book recounts.

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

In another disclosure, the authors say that Indian investigators found that “corrupt local police officers” had helped four JeM terrorists sneak into the Pathankot airbase to carry out an attack, in which seven personnel of security forces were killed. In a surprise move, the Modi government had invited a team of Pakistani investigators to Pathankot to jointly investigate the terror attack, but relations broke down between the two countries shortly after, and the joint investigation plan went nowhere. The NIA charge-sheet filed the same year against JeM doesn’t mention that the terrorists were helped by uniformed men.

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

Note: "Corrupt local police officers" included DSP Davinder Singh. Indian government recently refused to probe and press charges against Davinder Singh. Were these false flag ops orchestrated by Indian intelligence?

https://www.opindia.com/2021/08/did-govt-order-say-no-probe-investigation-necessary-in-davinder-singh-case-fact-check/

Riaz Haq said...

Ghazala Wahab
@ghazalawahab

Two reasons why India's foreign policy always come up short.

1. Exaggerated sense of self.
2. Deep-rooted hatred against Pakistan, which translates into prejudice against Muslims; and repeated iteration of cross-border terrorism, when we know there is no such thing

#IndiaAt75

https://twitter.com/ghazalawahab/status/1430526871196684297?s=20

Riaz Haq said...

Fidato
@tequieremos

In 1980, India and Israel collaborated a joint attack against Pakistan's nuclear plant in Kahuta. The nuclear program was still in the embryonic state. Plus there were no F-16 aircrafts with the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) to counter such a strike. A squadron of Israeli aircraft...


https://twitter.com/tequieremos/status/1447977997177442310?s=20


https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/48288/did-india-plan-to-get-pakistans-nuclear-facility-destroyed-by-israel-in-the-mid


The timing of Khan’s outpourings could not have been worse. Reagan was due in Beijing. The aid package to Pakistan was up for renewal on Capitol Hill. In New Delhi, too, there was anger at Khan and at the US. The talk was that Washington had betrayed India’s secret plans to strike at Pakistan’s nuclear project. K. Subrahmanyam, chairman of India’s joint intelligence committee, picked over the Khan interviews. “We knew we were being challenged by Islamabad,” Subrahmanyam recalled. “Our intelligence people also had evidence of the Pakistan air force increasing their levels of readiness, further proof, if any more were needed, that our covert intentions to hit Kahuta were not secret any more.”

But what made India’s joint intelligence committee livid was that it had been sitting on the plan to strike KRL for a year. A committee of soldiers and intelligence people had first come together to discuss what became known as “the Osirak contingency” in 1981, after Lieutenant General Krishnaswami Sundarji had published his Pakistan war-gaming manual. Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi had consented and placed Air Marshal Dilbagh Singh, chief of air staff, in charge of the operation. He had ordered Indian Air Force Jaguar squadrons to practice low-level flying, simulating runs with 2,000-lb bombs.

In February 1983, with the strike plan at an advanced stage, Indian military officials had travelled secretly to Israel, which had a common interest in eliminating Khan, to buy electronic warfare equipment to neutralize Kahuta’s air defenses. On 25 February 1983, Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi had accused Pakistan of “covertly attempting to make nuclear weapons,” and three days later, Raja Ramanna, director of India’s Bhabha Atomic Research Center, had revealed that India, too, was developing a uranium enrichment facility. Suspecting something was brewing, the ISI sent a message to their Indian intelligence counterparts in RAW that autumn, and as a result Munir Ahmed Khan of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission met Dr. Ramanna at the Imperial Hotel in Vienna. He warned Ramanna that if India were to strike at Kahuta, Pakistan would hit India’s nuclear facilities at Trombay. It lay downwind from the teeming Indian city of Mumbai and an attack would result in the release of “massive amounts of radiation to a large populated area, causing a disaster.”


— Adrian Levy & Catherine Scott-Clark: "Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the global nuclear weapons conspiracy", Walker Books, 2010.


Riaz Haq said...

Praveen Swami’s legacy of “sources” journalism

https://caravanmagazine.in/media/praveen-swami-india-pakistan-balakot-firstpost-journalism


By Praveen Donthi

In 2013, I reported for The Caravan on India’s compromised national security beat. I noted in the piece that reporting on the “natsec” beat in India has always been a murky business, centred on a transactional relationship between the reporters and their sources in the security establishments. The glamorous nature of natsec reporting also ensures that they keep their sources completely anonymous, and are rarely questioned by editors. These reporters rely heavily on leaks, and the price for access is publishing information without much regard for its provenance. The beneficiaries of these dynamics are India’s security establishment and its government, which, on matters of national security, prefer to function without public scrutiny and accountability.

Swami, whose work I analysed in the 2013 report, fits neatly into this pattern. “If there is one infallible indicator of what the top Indian intelligence agencies are thinking or cooking up, it is this: Praveen Swami’s articles,” a 2010 report by the Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association, a human-rights group, said.

Swami’s reports are based mostly on unnamed sources in intelligence agencies, and make big claims with recurring narrative patterns. I wrote in 2013 that his pieces often flaunted details that would have been difficult for any journalist to discover first-hand, all presented in neat, confident narratives. His work has since continued along similar lines. On 26 February, as the foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale announced that India had conducted an airstrike in Balakot, Firstpost had carried one of the first reports on the strikes. The article claimed that, “according to defence sources, IAF fighter jets not only targeted the JeM camp, but also Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen camps near Muzaffarabad.” These sources further claimed that there were six more targets “including Chakothi, Balakot and Muzaffarabad” and that five terror camps were also “targeted at Kangar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.” The article was attributed to “FP staff.”

A week after the government claimed Indian forces had carried out surgical strikes on terror-training camps in Pakistan-administered Kashmir on 29 September 2016, Swami wrote a story for The Indian Express, where he was Strategic and International Affairs editor at the time. The story claimed to include “information which the governments of India and Pakistan have not made public.” The article, however, only confirmed India’s claims of the strikes. Swami claimed in the report that he sent questions to five people, “using a commercially available encrypted chat system,” who visited the villages that were apparently attacked during the strikes and spoke to the residents. Swami described them as “eyewitnesses.”

One of the stories Firstpost published after the recent fracas was by Francesca Marino, an Italian journalist. Marino’s story claimed that 35 people were killed in the strikes and mentioned that “the eyewitnesses were contacted by this correspondent using encrypted communication.”

Swami’s 2016 Indian Express story included this bit about a vengeful sentiment among the ranks of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, following the surgical strikes:

Friday prayers at a Lashkar-affiliated mosque in Chalhana, another eyewitness said, ended with a cleric vowing to avenge the deaths of the men killed the previous day. “The Lashkar men gathered there were blaming the Pak Army for failing to defend the border”, he said in one message, “and saying they would soon give India an answer it would never forget”.

He authored a Firstpost story on 1 March this year, which spoke of a similar sentiment among the leadership of the Jaish-e-Mohammed, whose training camp is believed to be target of India’s recent Balakot strike:


Riaz Haq said...

Satish Acharya
@satishacharya
Infiltration!

(Cartoon shows a militant hiding under the carpet Modi and Amit Shah are standing on with binoculars looking for "infiltration" from Pakistan: The caption says: IS LET terrorist arrested in J&K is a BJP member).

https://twitter.com/satishacharya/status/1544302434243198983?s=20&t=oVW_dL0K38bAYF4etCytrw

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

LeT Terrorist Arrested in J&K Was BJP's IT Cell Head, Party Denies He Was Member
Talib Hussain Shah was recently appointed as the BJP Minority Morcha's social media incharge.

https://www.thequint.com/news/india/bjps-minority-morcha-leader-among-lashkar-e-taiba-terrorists-arrested-in-jammu-social-media-it-cell-talib-shah-hussain-jammu-kashmir-amit-shah

Among the two terrorists belonging to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) who were arrested in Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday, 3 July, was a BJP leader, Talib Hussain Shah.

Shah was allegedly the BJP Minority Morcha's social media incharge in Jammu. He, along with one Faizal Ahmed Dar, were apprehended by villagers in Tuksan, Reasi district, as per the police. Two AK rifles, seven grenades, six sticky bombs, wer e recovered from the two, along with other arms and ammunition.

Talib Shah was allegedly appointed as the saffron party's IT and social media incharge in Jammu in the recent past.

"Mr Talib Hussain Shah, at Draj Kotranka, District Rajouri, shall be the new IT & Social Media incharge of BJP Minority Mocha Jammu Province with immediate effect," an purported order issued by the BJP Minority Morcha, J&K, on 9 May states.

Some pictures emerged on social media purportedly showing Shah with BJP leaders. One of the pictures shows J&K BJP president Ravinder Raina purportedly presenting him with a bouquet.

Another one, posted by J&K Congress, showed Talib Shah sharing a dais with Home Minister Amit Shah.

LeT commander Shah is a resident of Rajouri district and was the mastermind of the recent IED blasts in the district, officials said.

BJP Denies Shah Was IT Cell Head, Cong Demands High-Level Probe
BJP spokesperson Abhinav Sharma claimed the captured terrorist, Talib Hussain Shah of Rajouri, visited the party headquarters by posing as a reporter of a news portal under a conspiracy to conduct recce at the behest of his handlers across the border to target the party leadership.

He rejected claims that Shah was minority cell's IT in-charge in J&K and demanded that the security of the BJP office and leaders be strengthened.

"According to our official records, he was neither a primary member nor a basic member, so there is no question of being an active member," Sharma said.

Riaz Haq said...

Prashant.Patel
@PPatel108
Pawan Khera on DSP Davinder Singh who was ferrying Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists,why was DSP allowed to go scot free by LG. India lost 40 soldiers in that (Pulwama) deadly attack.👇

https://twitter.com/PPatel108/status/1544254700576464899?s=20&t=QJQmihuprcqzgk1Pd9F9xA

Riaz Haq said...

Fidato
@tequieremos
Adil Dar who carried out the Pulwama attack was a local boy. He was picked up 6 times by Indian army in last two years. The question arises how can a VBIED with 350 Kg explosives reach the ambush site by going undetected through the LoC and 500,000 Indian forces in J&K.

https://twitter.com/tequieremos/status/1596472059269644289?s=20&t=VvWYL05GgLYIyO8SpKmf4Q

Riaz Haq said...

#India, #Pakistan came close to a #nuclear war, claims ex US Sec of State Mike Pompeo. His Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj called, told him that Pakistan was preparing for a nuclear attack after #Balakot strike in February 2019 & India ready to retaliate

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-pakistan-came-close-to-a-nuclear-war-claims-former-us-secretary-of-state-in-new-book/article66429650.ece


Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has claimed that he was “awakened” to speak to his then Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj who told him that Pakistan was preparing for a nuclear attack after the Balakot surgical strike in February 2019 and India is preparing its own escalatory response.

In his latest book Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love that hit the stores on Tuesday, Mr. Pompeo says the incident took place when he was in Hanoi for the U.S.-North Korea Summit on February 27-28 and his team worked overnight with both New Delhi and Islamabad to avert this crisis.

Riaz Haq said...

Sushma Swaraj "Wasn't Important Player": 5 Top Quotes From Mike Pompeo Book

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/mike-pompeos-book-never-give-an-inch-5-quotes-claiming-us-stopped-india-pak-nuclear-war-3722522

Mike Pompeo's "Never Give an Inch," his memoir of his time as Donald Trump's top diplomat and earlier CIA chief, was published on Tuesday.

Former US President Donald Trump's top diplomat Mike Pompeo, in his just-published memoir, has claimed that India and Pakistan came close to nuclear war in 2019 and that US intervention prevented escalation.
Here are the top five points Mike Pompeo made his new book:
Mr Pompeo claimed he was awakened some time in 2019 to speak to his then Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj who told him that Pakistan was preparing for a nuclear attack in the wake of the Balakot surgical strike and India is preparing its own response.
"I do not think the world properly knows just how close the India-Pakistan rivalry came to spilling over into a nuclear conflagration in February 2019. The truth is, I don't know precisely the answer either; I just know it was too close," Mr Pompeo wrote.
The former US official said he spoke to Ms Swaraj who "believed the Pakistanis had begun to prepare their nuclear weapons for a strike. India, he (sic) informed me, was contemplating its own escalation". "I asked him to do nothing and give us a minute to sort things out... No other nation could have done what we did that night to avoid a horrible outcome," he wrote.
Mr Pompeo said Pakistan "probably enabled" the attack on security forces in Pulwama, which triggered the Balakot strike, said he spoke to "the actual leader of Pakistan," then army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, in an allusion to the weakness of civilian governments.
In comments critical of Sushma Swaraj, Mr Pompeo wrote, "On the Indian side, my original counterpart was not an important player on the Indian foreign policy team. Instead, I worked much more closely with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, a close and trusted confidante of Prime Minister Narendra Modi".

Riaz Haq said...

Fidato
@tequieremos
Adil Dar who carried out the #PulwamaAttack was a local boy. He was picked up 6 times by Indian army within a time frame of two years.

The question arises how can a VBIED with 350 Kg explosives reach the ambush site by going undetected through LoC and 800,000 Indian forces?


https://twitter.com/tequieremos/status/1625379488237322242?s=20&t=O9ZSaFqtoGHjkfvRwvQ7eA

Riaz Haq said...

Hindu Mahasabha workers slaughtered cows to cause communal violence, says UP Police - India Today

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/hindu-mahasabha-workers-slaughtered-cows-themselves-to-cause-communal-violence-up-police-2357323-2023-04-08

By Siraj Qureshi: Uttar Pradesh Police on Saturday revealed that some members of the Bharat Hindu Mahasabha slaughtered cows themselves to incite communal violence in Agra during the Ram Navami procession.

Agra Police had arrested four youths accused of cow slaughter on the occasion of Ram Navami. The youths were arrested during Ram Navami celebrations in Gautam Nagar of Etmaduddaula area in Agra during a raid.

Regional police told India Today that the names of several office-bearers of the Bharat Hindu Mahasabha have also surfaced in the cow slaughter plot.


According to the information, the name of the Hindu Mahasabha’s national spokesperson, Sanjay Jat, has emerged as the main conspirator. Many workers are also said to be involved in the conspiracy. Jitendra Kushwaha had lodged an FIR about cow slaughter at Etmaduddaula police station.

DCP Suraj Rai said that many facts had come to the fore during the police investigation. Two, named Imran alias Thakur and Shanu named in the FIR were arrested by the police.

Shanu told the police that he reached Mehtab Bagh at 8 pm on March 29 and found Imran, Salman, and Sairo there. They then decided to kill a cow roaming there. That's when Shanu and Imran went and informed Jitendra Kushwaha about this.


Some Hindu Mahasabha workers complained against Jitendra Kushwaha and Sanjay Jat and said they themselves were getting the cow slaughtered to spoil the communal harmony of Agra on Ram Navami.

On the other hand, Sanjay Jat has told India Today that he has been deliberately trapped by the office bearers of the Hindu Mahasabha and the entire episode should be investigated by CBCID. He said that he will complain about these officials to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

Riaz Haq said...

Ex-IIOJK governor’s revelations on #Pulwama (#Kashmir) attack vindicate #Pakistan. #Indian PM #Modi wanted to use the attack to blame Pakis­tan for the benefit of his government and the #BJP to win the 2019 elections in #India. #Balakot https://www.dawn.com/news/1747979


https://thewire.in/politics/satya-pal-malik-full-interview-pulwama-modi


The Foreign Office (FO) said on Sunday that the latest revelations made by Satya Pal Malik — the “so-called” former governor of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) — regarding the Pulwama attack in 2019 had “once again vindicated Pakistan’s stance”.

In February 2019, an attack took place on Indian paramilitary troops in IIOJK killing more than 40 soldiers. India accused Pakistan of being behind the attack from the get-go — a charge Islamabad has vehemently denied.

On Friday, in an interview with Indian publication The Wire, Malik — who was governor during the Pulwama atta­ck and the scrapping of Article 370 in August that year — said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hid key facts from the public about the incident.

He told the publication that he immediately realised that Modi wanted to use the attack to blame Pakis­tan for the benefit of his government and the BJP.

Malik said the Indian prime minister was “ill-informed” and “ignorant” about IIOJK, and that he had told Malik not to speak about the home ministry’s lapses, which led to the devastating incident.

He revealed that the attack on the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) convoy in Pulwama was a result of “incompetence” and “carelessness” by the Indian system, specifically the CRPF and the home min­i­­stry.

Malik also gave details of how the CRPF had asked for aircraft to transport its personnel but was refused by the home ministry.

More importantly, he said all of these lapses were raised by him directly when Modi called him from outside Corbett Park, shortly after the Pulwama attack. He said the prime minister told him to keep quiet about this and not tell anyone.

Malik also said that National Security Adviser Ajit Doval also told him to keep quiet and not talk about it. Malik said he immediately realised that the intention was to put the blame on Pakistan and derive electoral benefit for the government and BJP.

In a statement issued on Sunday, the FO said that Malik’s disclosures demonstrated how the “Indian leadership has habitually used the bogey of terrorism from Pakistan to advance its sham victimhood narrative and the Hindutva agenda, clearly for domestic political gains”.

“We hope that the international community would take cognisance of the latest revelations and see through India’s propaganda campaign against Pakistan driven by selfish political considerations and based on lies and deceit,” it said.

The FO stressed that India must answer the questions raised in the latest revelations. “It is time India be held accountable for the actions that imperiled regional peace in the aftermath of the Pulwama attack”.

The statement added that Pakistan would continue to counter India’s “false narrative” and act firmly and responsibly in the face of different provocations.

Pulwama attack and Operation Swift Retort
The attack in Pulwama on Feb 14, 2019, surpassing one in 2016 when 19 soldiers died, saw explosives packed inside a van rip through buses in a convoy of 78 vehicles carrying some 2,500 members of the paramilitary CRPF.

Two blue buses carrying around 35 people each bore the brunt of the explosion around 20 kilometres from the main city of Srinagar on the main highway towards Jammu.

The next day, Modi said his country would give a “strong response” to the Pulwama attack. The “blood of the people is boiling” and forces behind the act of terrorism will be definitely be punished, he was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times.

Modi didn’t name Pakistan but went on to say: “If our neighbour, which is totally isolated in the world and thinks it can destabilise India through its tactics and conspiracies, then it is making a huge mistake”.

Riaz Haq said...

Transcript of ex Governor StayaPal Malik (SM) with Karan Thapar (KT) on Pulwama:


https://thewire.in/politics/satya-pal-malik-full-interview-pulwama-modi

SM: I told him that it was our fault.

KT: And he asked you to keep quiet on the subject?

SM: I had also said it to someone, a channel or so, and then he told me to not say these things and let him talk.

KT: This is again very important. When you had told the Prime Minister that this has happened because of us, that they had asked for the aircraft and Home Ministry did not give them, and the Prime Minister asked you to keep quiet. He said don’t let people know we made a mistake.

SM: Doval also said this to me.

KT: Who?

SM: Doval, Ajit Doval.

KT: He also told you to keep quiet?


KT: So what you’re saying, is both the Prime Minister—

SM: I can share with you, that I realised that this entire onus is going to be put on Pakistan so it’s better to be quiet on the subject now.

KT: So this was in some way, a clever policy of the government that blame Pakistan—

SM: Exactly.

KT: And we will get credit, and that will help our election.

SM: Exactly.

KT: But you said two very important things that the prime minister knew that you had told him it was our fault?

SM: I distinctly remember. He was in Corbett National Park, getting his shooting done. There isn’t a phone there, so after getting out of there, he called me from a dhaba, Satyapal, what happened? I told him sir I am very unhappy that this happened solely due to our fault if we had given them an aircraft it wouldn’t have happened. He told me to keep quiet about it then.

KT: And Mr Doval said the same?

SM: Yes.

KT: In an interview to a YouTube channel [given to Prashant Tandon of DB Live], you said that the route was not sanitised, security was not—

SM: Of course it was not sanitised. The route has 8-10 link roads specifically in that area, not one of them was manned by someone to restrict access to people. Nothing was done.

KT: All link roads were unmanned?

SM: Unmanned.

KT: How many link roads?


SM: Around 8-10.

KT: 8-10 link roads were unmanned? This is a huge security lax.

SM: This also I told them. This was our lax. We were not in the loop, CRPF was planning everything.

KT: In you YouTube interview, you said that there was incompetence and carelessness. Whose?

SM: The Home Ministry’s and the CRPF.

KT: Both? And Home Ministry came under Rajnath Singh.

SM: Now whosoever was there, I don’t know.

KT: He was Rajnath Singh and that means the buck stops with Rajnath Singh who was home minister. He was the one to blame.