Clandestine volatility

There are reasons to believe that India is out to plough potential human targets inside Pakistan. The cold-blooded murder of Amir Tamba in Lahore is a case in point. New Delhi’s culpability is, moreover, suspected as it was previously involved in commissioning assassinations, and the same was officially documented by international media. Britain’s Guardian newspaper disclosed citing intelligence sleuths that India had been actively carrying out operations on Pakistan’s soil. This nefarious episode is widely evident as a series of killings were uncovered, involving people who either had been campaigners against Indian excesses in IIOJK or were members of religio-political groups. The plot thickened as Tamba languishing in jail along with an Indian condemned prisoner was shot dead in Lahore’s Islampura area.

This new phenomenon of trigger-happiness is becoming a point of concern. Apart from Pakistan, countries such as the US and Canada are on the receiving end. India, of late, had moved to assassinate men whom it suspected of either being a mole, or pursuing a course of action detrimental to its foreign relations. Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, Jaish-e-Mohammad activist Shahid Latif and a dozen more such high-profile murders as well as a car bombing outside the residence of Jamaat-ud-Dawa leader Hafiz Saeed in Lahore are open and shut cases of RAW’s interference. This aspect needs to be deterred, and India must draw retribution for such uncivilised acts that could lead to fissures in bilateral relations and push them to the verge of catastrophe.

While recourse to counter intelligence is a way to go in the nomenclature of the deep state axis, there are ethics and laws that bind their limits and actions. India, and its likes, perhaps intoxicated with power arrogance, believe in throwing to wind international conventions on diplomacy, and go on to indulge in rampage activities. In the case of Pakistan, India has always been a foul player and that is established with the unearthing of Kulbushan Jadhav’s and other sleeping cells across the country. This intrusion and clandestine volatility must be checked.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 17^th, 2024.

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