The Indian government has firmly refuted claims made by the UK-based Guardian newspaper report that New Delhi, through its intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing, carried out assassinations of terrorists on Pakistani soil since 2020.
Responding to the report, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the report false and malicious anti-India propaganda.
It also quoted Foreign Minister S Jaishankar, who had said recently that targeted killings in other countries were not the government of India's policy.
Quoting unnamed intelligence officers from Pakistan and India, the Guardian report claimed that Indian intelligence sleeper cells operating out of the United Arab Emirates carried out assassinations of terrorists in Pakistan. It claimed that 20 such assassinations have been reported since the Pulwama attack of 2019.
An Indian intelligence officer told the Guardian that the Pulwama attack prompted fears within the Indian government that militant groups in Pakistan were planning a repeat of attacks such as the 2008 Mumbai bombings.
The report mentions that India had drawn inspiration from intelligence agencies such as Israel’s Mossad and Russia’s KGB, which have been linked to extrajudicial killings on foreign soil.
The targeted killings increased significantly in 2023, the report notes, accusing India of involvement in the suspected deaths of about 15 people, most of whom were shot at close range by unknown gunmen.
“This policy of Indian agents organising killings in Pakistan hasn’t been developed overnight. We believe they have worked for around two years to establish these sleeper cells in the UAE who are mostly organising the executions. After that, we began witnessing many killings,” a Pakistani intelligence official told The Guardian.