Indian Defence Minister’s Threat to Kill Terrorists in Pakistan

By Sajjad Shaukat

During his interview with local broadcaster CNN News 18 on April 5, this year, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh threatened that India will enter Pakistan to kill anyone who escapes over the border after trying to carry out terrorist activities in the country.

The Guardian reported on April 4, 2024: “Interviews with intelligence officials in both countries, as well as documents shared by Pakistani investigators, shed new light on how India’s foreign intelligence agency began to carry out assassinations abroad as part of an emboldened approach to national security after 2019. The Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) is directly controlled by the office of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, who is running for a third term in office in elections later this month”.

It further reported: “India has also been accused publicly by Washington and Ottawa of involvement in the murders of dissident figures including a Sikh activist in Canada and of a botched assassination attempt on another Sikh in the US last year…The fresh claims relate to almost 20 killings since 2020, carried out by unknown gunmen in Pakistan…This is the first time Indian intelligence personnel have discussed the operations in Pakistan, and detailed documentation has been seen…RAW’s direct involvement in the  assassinations…According to the evidence gathered by Pakistan, the killings were regularly coordinated out of the UAE, where RAW established sleeper cells that would separately arrange different parts of the operation and recruit the killers…The rise in killings in 2023 was credited to the increased activity of these cells, which are paying millions of rupees to local criminals to carry out the assassinations. Indian agents also recruited jihadists to carry out the shootings, making them believe they were killing “infidels”…Millions of rupees were then paid to Afghan nationals to carry out the shooting in Karachi in March 2022. They fled over the border but their handlers were later arrested by Pakistani security agencies”.

Next day, Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced “provocative remarks” made by Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, saying “India’s assertion of its preparedness to extra-judicially execute more civilians, arbitrarily pronounced as ‘terrorists’, inside Pakistan constitutes a clear admission of culpability…Pakistan stands resolute in its intent and ability to safeguard its sovereignty against any act of aggression”.

It is notable that after the World War 11, nuclear weapons were never used and were only employed as a strategic threat. During the heightened days of the Cold War, many crises arose in Suez Canal, Korea, Cuba and Vietnam when the US and the former Soviet Union were willing to use atomic weapons, but, they stopped due to the fear of nuclear war which could eliminate both the superpowers. Hence, they preferred to resolve their differences through diplomacy by following the doctrine of nuclear deterrence, popularly known as balance of terror.

Political strategists agree that in nuclear deterrence, weapons are less usable, as their threat is enough in deterring an enemy who intends to use its armed might.

But, situation of the Sub-continent is quite different where without bothering for the eruption of atomic war between India and Pakistan; New Delhi has been ignoring the tenets of ‘nuclear deterrence’.

In fact, BJP won the general elections of 2014 and 2019 on the basis of anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan slogans. Therefore, since Narendar Modi, the fanatic leader of the biased ruling party BJP, became Indian prime minister; he has been implementing ideology of Hindutva (Hindu Nationalism) by persecuting the Muslims and creating war-hysteria among the Hindus against Pakistan.

In this regard, Modi-led BJP government can go to any extent to win the general elections to be held in 2024.

In the recent past, the false flag operation staged by India to achieve multiple objectives, especially to divert global attention from human rights violations in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) and blamed Pakistan for terrorism there.

Once again, India wants to recreate the Pulwama drama to obtain political goals. Global media reports also confirmed that Indian forces are spreading terrorism along the Line of Control (LoC) to achieve political ambitions.

Indian media also suggest that the Modi government is trying to disrupt the ceasefire agreement on the LoC.

Very tension escalated rapidly between New Delhi and Islamabad in the aftermath of the false flag Pulwama terror attack in the IIOJK—when on February 27, 2019, in response to the Indian so-called pre-emptive air strike near the town of Balakot, close to the border with Pakistan’s sector of Kashmir, which resulted into no causalities, Pakistan Air Force shot down two Indian Air Force fighter jets and launched aerial strikes at six targets in the IIOJK.

Notably, revelations by Satya Pal Malik, ex-governor of IIOJK in an interview with Karan Thapar in The Wire abundantly made it clear that Modi allowed Pulwama incident of February 2019 to happen where more than 40 personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were killed in a suicide attack.

Ex-Governor elaborated that Modi has no concern with whatever happened in Pulwama and he did not allow him to raise some pertinent questions the way attack happened suggesting that he was privy to impending attack. Hence Modi’s involvement is vivid.

On August 5, 2019, Modi-led government abrogated articles 35A and 370 of the Constitution, which gave a special status to the IIOJK. New Delhi bifurcated Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories—Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh to be ruled by the federal government. On the same day, strict military lockdown was imposed in the IIOJK which continues unabated.

New Delhi also issued an infamous map which displayed these divisions. Besides Pakistan, China also rejected the Indian malicious acts as “unlawful and void”, saying that India’s decision to “include” some of China’s territory into its administrative jurisdiction “challenged” Beijing’s sovereignty.

Similarly, drastic tensions arose between New Delhi and Beijing on May 5, 2021, when India occupied various areas, adjacent to the Line of Actual Control (LAC). In response, Chinese forces moved into the regions along the eastern Ladakh border and vacated the disputed territories.

It is mentionable that a US intelligence report, entitled ‘The Global Trends’, released on April 7, 2020 warned that “nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan might engage in a large-scale war unwittingly…Miscalculation by both governments could prompt a breakdown in the deterrence that has restricted conflict.”

It is noteworthy that BJP leader Dr. Subramaniam Swami had stated that India needed only two years to defeat Pakistan militarily, and the only solution of Kashmir was war, as “there is no peaceful, democratic solution”.

Pakistan’s civil and military leaders have repeatedly indicated that India is planning another false flag operation against Pakistan in order to divert attention from its internal issues and from failure of its external policy with the real aim of wining general elections 2024. They have frequently stated that Pakistan’s armed forces “are ready to respond any Indian aggression with full might.

Nonetheless, clouds of nuclear war are hovering over South Asia where Modi’s risky strategy of conducting another false flag operation inside Pakistani side of Kashmir by ignoring the doctrine of nuclear deterrence could result into a full-scale conventional war with Pakistan, which may culminate into atomic war, enveloping the entire region and probably the whole world.

Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is the author of the book, US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations

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