A darker aspect of Indian foreign policy has been in the news for the past few months: the arbitrary killing of dissidents and those who are seen as opponents abroad.
The involvement of Indian operatives in such questionable activities was made public by US and Canadian authorities last year, and Pakistan has long complained of New Delhi’s malicious efforts within its borders. Although the most well-known of these cases is perhaps the Kulbhushan Jadhav affair, there have been other similar incidences.
At a press briefing on Thursday, Foreign Secretary Syrus Qazi stated that the government possessed reliable proof of Indian participation in extrajudicial executions in Pakistan. He notably brought up the killings of Shahid Latif in Sialkot and Muhammad Riaz in Rawalakot, Azad Kashmir, last year.
Long-standing rumours that the two individuals, who were formerly connected to militant groups with a focus on Kashmir, might have been Indian targets were validated by Mr. Qazi’s briefing. Along with naming the Indian agents thought to have oversaw these activities, he also listed the names of the local suspects detained for their role in the killings.
It was stated that one of the Indian agents was working out of a Gulf nation. The foreign secretary noted that although New Delhi has swiftly refuted these accusations, at first several mainstream and social media accounts in India had boasted about the killings as “retribution.” First and foremost, no foreign actor is permitted to take out such unlawful killings in order to undermine Pakistan’s territorial sovereignty. Diplomatic channels must be used to settle disputes if any state feels that people in Pakistan have committed misconduct. We cannot put up with Gung-ho behaviour that seems to come straight out of a spy novel.
Second, the government must exercise vigilance to prevent hostile forces from taking the law into their own hands and murdering citizens on American territory without cause.
India won’t be able to respond to Pakistan’s allegations of involvement in cross-border assassinations in the same way as Western nations like the US, where an Indian resident has been accused in a failedwhere an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate a pro-Khalistan activist has resulted in the charging of an Indian citizen.
India needs to stop destabilising other governments and follow the rules of engagement. Meanwhile, its Western allies should speak out more against India’s illicit actions abroad because this is not how responsible states operate.
