A report by The Washington Post published on Tuesday revealed that India's external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), executed a covert assassination program targeting approximately half a dozen individuals in Pakistan starting from 2021.
The investigative report, based on interviews with Pakistani and Indian officials and families, and a review of police records and other evidence, revealed an ambitious plan with operations resembling those conducted in North America.
One of the detailed cases was the attack on Amir Sarfraz Tamba. The Post described it as "the most recent example of what Pakistani officials call a striking development" in India's cross-border terrorism.
The report claimed that RAW, since 2021, initiated a methodical programme targeting individuals deep within Pakistan.
"India's intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), has since 2021 deployed a methodical assassination program to kill at least a half dozen people deep within Pakistan, according to Pakistani and Western officials," the Post article read.
The article said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi portrayed himself as the most resolute and confrontational leader against India's adversaries since independence.
"Since last year, India's relations with Western governments have been rocked by allegations that RAW officials also ordered the assassination of Sikh separatists in Canada and the United States - operations that appeared to be an outgrowth of a campaign first tested and refined in Pakistan," the Post added.
The alleged programme, according to Pakistani and Western officials, utilised local petty criminals or Afghan operatives instead of Indian nationals to carry out killings, ensuring deniability.
RAW officers reportedly worked through intermediaries, employing siloed teams to conduct surveillance, execute assassinations and channel payments through informal banking networks known as hawalas.
"To aid deniability, RAW officers employed businessmen in Dubai, as intermediaries and deployed separate, siloed teams to surveil targets, execute killings and funnel payments from dozens of informal, unregulated banking networks known as hawalas set up in multiple continents, according to Pakistani investigators.
However, The Post highlighted instances of "sloppy tradecraft and poorly trained contractors," drawing parallels with RAW's operations in the West.
"The Sikh separatists who were targeted in Canada and the United States, Hardeep Singh Nijjar and Gurpatwant Pannun, were also designated as terrorists by India, although Western officials and analysts have disputed the persuasiveness of the Indian evidence against them," it added.
The Post noted that ISI Director General Nadeem Anjum raised concerns about RAW's activities with CIA Director William J. Burns in 2022, well before allegations from Canada and the US surfaced.
"Our concerns arose independent of the US and Canadian investigations," said a current Pakistani official. "Can India rise peacefully? Our answer is no."
However, Indian officials declined to comment, maintaining their longstanding stance of neither confirming nor denying involvement in such killings. India's Ministry of External Affairs declined to comment on the Post's article.
The article disclosed that around the same time, a RAW officer in New Delhi, Vikash Yadav, allegedly orchestrated an assassination attempt on Sikh separatist Pannun in New York, as detailed in a US federal indictment.
Yadav reportedly directed his agent, businessman Nikhil Gupta, to hire a local assassin. Like Ansari, Yadav operated remotely, appeared under time pressure, and made remarks suggesting a broader plan to eliminate multiple targets.
"But unlike in Pakistan, US prosecutors said the New York plot was quickly foiled after Gupta unwittingly asked a DEA informant to introduce him to a hit man."
"Canadian officials, at the same time, said they also uncovered a sprawling Indian campaign to surveil, intimidate and even kill Sikhs. While criminal elements were employed, as in Pakistan, Indian diplomats stationed in Canada were also enlisted to monitor members of the Sikh diaspora, according to Canadian officials, who cited the diplomats' private electronic conversations and text messages. It's unclear how those conversations were obtained."
The report tied RAW's tactics in Pakistan to similar operations abroad, including an alleged assassination attempt on Sikh separatist Pannun in New York, outlined in a US federal indictment.
While RAW's methods succeeded in Pakistan, the report stated, attempts in the West, like the New York plot, were foiled due to improved counterintelligence by Western law enforcement.
The article noted that Christopher Clary, a political science professor at the State University of New York at Albany, compared RAW's record of targeted killings to that of Israel's Mossad. He highlighted that while Mossad successfully executed assassinations in less-developed nations, its agents were caught on hotel surveillance cameras during a 2010 operation targeting a Hamas leader in Dubai.
"One read is [the RAW] had been succeeding in Pakistan for a full year before they start developing this effort in the West," Clary said. "But the tactics, techniques and procedures that worked pretty well in Pakistan didn't necessarily work in the West."
The report highlighted an operation involving Shahid Latif. Following his assassination, Pakistani officials raided a Dubai safe house, uncovering intelligence but failing to capture the Indian operatives allegedly involved.
The raid on an Indian Air Force station hindered the diplomatic efforts between Modi and his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif.
The article reported that this time, RAW encountered a different kind of backlash.
Following his arrest, Umair admitted he had been sent from Dubai to personally assassinate Latif after multiple failed attempts by his co-conspirators. According to two sources familiar with the case, Umair disclosed the location of a safe house in Dubai, prompting Pakistani agents to raid the apartment.
While they uncovered valuable intelligence, the two Indian occupants, Ashok Kumar Anand Salian and Yogesh Kumar, were not found. (Umair was unavailable for comment.)
Pakistani Foreign Secretary Muhammad Syrus Sajjad Qazi publicly accused India of orchestrating the killings, presenting evidence of forged passports. India dismissed the claims as "false and malicious anti-India propaganda."
"Until that point, Pakistan had rarely acknowledged the Indian operations. But at a news conference in February, Pakistani Foreign Secretary Muhammad Syrus Sajjad Qazi held up scans of passports belonging to Salian and Kumar and accused them of directing the murders of Latif and of Riyaz one month earlier."
The article noted that in April, Salian made his sole public appearance in an interview with a pro-government Indian television channel.
Seated in a sparsely furnished New Delhi apartment and wearing dark sunglasses indoors, he claimed to be an ordinary Dubai-based business owner. Salian said he had employed a Pakistani worker at his cyber café who might have acted independently and denied any connections to RAW.
"After Pakistan arrested him, they must have seen who was his sponsor in Dubai," Salian said. "I feel aggrieved that my details are being highlighted and my reputation damaged."
Indian media outlets reportedly celebrated the assassinations, with broadcasts glorifying RAW's reach.
Prime Minister Modi, during a campaign rally, implied India's willingness to strike its enemies at home or abroad. Indian Home Minister Amit Shah, named in Canadian investigations, remarked, "Whoever did the killings, what's the problem?"
Srinath Raghavan, an Indian military historian and former army officer, noted that Modi's government has promoted a narrative of a "New India," using covert operations to project strength domestically and signal toughness to Pakistan.
The former military officer was quoted as saying that the Modi government has highlighted special forces raids inside Pakistan and promoted Bollywood films that glorify India's covert operatives.
"The whole tagline is, 'This is the New India,'" Raghavan said. "The Modi government came in with the view that you need to strike back, and you need to signal publicly that you're doing it. It's aimed at telling Pakistan that we're willing to come and hit hard, but it also has a domestic component."
However, analysts believe that Indian officials have clearly demonstrated their extensive and deadly reach to both Pakistan and the Indian public.
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