The Guardian recently released a report claiming that India has been orchestrating extrajudicial killings in Pakistan since 2020, but the report is more scandalous, sensational, and one-sided than real and true because it is devoid of any supporting documents. Furthermore, because Pakistan is such a simpleton, all of its efforts to disseminate propaganda against India and damage India’s reputation abroad have only served to reinforce the resolve of Indian officials and leaders.
According to the report, the Indian intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), employed would-be jihadists to carry out attacks under the pretext of killing unbelievers in the name of religion. The key question to consider is why Pakistan’s supposedly highly developed and active intelligence agency, ISI, remained silent during the four years if Pakistanis were aware of this. Why didn’t the ISI alert the Pakistani government sooner? In his book “Why Leaders Lie,” American political scientist John Mearsheimer highlights the reasons why leaders lie—both to preserve their own geopolitical credibility and to win over the sympathy and trust of the populace. Pakistan is slandering India in the same way.
Because ISI is the Pakistan Army’s spy agency, only ISI would have known about these killings if they had actually happened. However, since everything is fabricated, what would ISI have done? Just before India’s Lok Sabha election, this fake report was published in the UK daily, The Guardian, as an attempt by Pakistani and Western media to undermine Narendra Modi’s personality cult. This could also be seen as an attempt to prevent Modi from becoming India’s prime minister for a third time. The Guardian claimed that during an interview, Pakistani officials revealed that Indian hands were behind 20 assassinations in Pakistan executed by unknown gunmen. They also asserted that following the 2019 Pulwama attack, which claimed the lives of 49 CRPF commandos, India modified its national security strategy. Pakistan has served as a haven for terrorists, an asylum, and a shelter, as history attests. Not only that, but open participation in a public function in Pakistan has been observed by terrorists on the UN blacklist, such as Masood Azhar, among others. Yet this naive country continues to ignore the fact that India views the use of force as a last resort and only responds appropriately when terrorists carry out acts that are hostile to the country.
The surgical strike of 2016 is sufficient to reinforce India’s reputation for attacking from the front rather than the rear, as Pakistan does. Pakistan maintains a proxy war against India because it is committed to “bleeding India with a thousand cuts.” Pakistan’s economy appears to be in dire straits, as it relies solely on aid from friendly nations, and even in that, fissures are developing due to the Kashmir issue. For example, Saudi Arabia maintained a distance with Pakistan over the Kashmir issue in 2020. India is viewed as an enemy by Pakistan, as it is excluded from major economic groups due to its support of terrorism. Furthermore, it is entirely possible that Pakistan is fabricating an anti-Indian narrative in an attempt to garner aid. By harming India’s reputation, Pakistan is only helping the current Indian government stay in power. By releasing this fake news, they are enhancing the credibility of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, demonstrating his resolve to eradicate terrorism in India and his refusal to back down from infiltrators and terrorists. India’s Lok Sabha elections are currently underway, and voters will undoubtedly respond in one of two ways: either they will reject this as Western propaganda against the BJP, or they will applaud the BJP for its unwavering commitment to combating terrorism in India.
Disinformation warfare against India has a history in Pakistan. The report also notes that anonymous Indian RAW officials have stated that India takes its cues from the KGB of Russia and the Mossad of Israel, but that India has no prior history of killing people abroad, in contrast to the former two. India has always been very open about its foreign policy and national security strategy and has never adopted a covert or secretive one. Even though India and Pakistan originated from the same land, they differ greatly, as India is on the cusp of becoming a developed nation and Pakistan is on the verge of extinction.
The Pakistan Army, a state within a state, routinely engages in the enforced disappearances and brutal killings of defenceless Pashtuns and Balochs. Instead, its goal is to eradicate the Baloch population from Balochistan and crush the Pashtuns’ aspirations for their own country, Pashtunistan. This unfounded accusation against India is merely a ploy to shift attention away from Pakistan and towards India. Pakistan’s geopolitical goal is to damage India’s reputation because the Indian Foreign Minister has made it abundantly evident that India does not practice killing on foreign land. Pakistan, along with some of his friends, are also uneasy about the rising global political status of India. The successful completion of the New Delhi G-20 Summit buttressed India’s rising status. India is also strongly pushing for a permanent seat in the Security Council. It is evident that India’s entry into the veto club of the security council could not be barred for long. Therefore, the article is an attempt to tarnish India’s image and thereby put a hurdle in its way. The three most dreaded enemies of India in Pakistan are Dawood Ibrahim, accused of the Mumbai blast; Masood Azahar, responsible for the Kandahar Plane highjack; and Hafiz Sayyed. If RAW has any such intention, it would make an attempt on them. But they are all in safe heaven. Then why would India blacken its image by killing such miscreants, which will not achieve anything astonishing?
The two biggest problems Pakistan is facing are rising inflation and a faltering economy. It is making it through under a mountain of debt and loans. The elected leaders are merely the Pakistani Army’s stooges, and their only goal is to buy luxury goods to placate the troops. Furthermore, the country has drawn criticism from all around the world for supporting terrorism. All of this puts Pakistan under the imminent threat of once more being placed on the FATF’s grey or blacklist, which was renounced in 2022. And if it happens again, Pakistan will face difficulty receiving loans and aid, which will make matters worse. As a result, it may be clearing terrorists on its own while pretending to be in the name of India. Pakistan is reportedly unable to carry out the action on its own because of a fear of challenging terrorists. For instance, they initially supported the TTP in Pakistan, but when it began to deceive Pakistan, they began to appease them.
Pakistan, a cunning but naive nation, might have copied the United States and Canada, as months ago they also claimed that India was responsible for the deaths of Khalistani leaders Pannun and Nijjar, an accusation that New Delhi categorically denied. Pakistan therefore followed suit in an attempt to create a global consensus that India is rife with cross-border killings occurring on foreign land. Furthermore, Pakistan, being a poor nation, may be merely carrying out their orders in order to receive financial support, and the West may be using Pakistan as a ploy to malign Modi and the BJP ahead of the elections in order to influence the result.
Thus, it is clear that the article, based on fabricated facts, is slanderous, scandalous and therefore pathetically missed the target.
