EDITORIAL: As part of a state-sponsored criminal enterprise to suppress dissent, India has let loose hit teams to eliminate its critics in other countries. Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Cyrus Sajjad Qureshi disclosed at a recent media briefing that Indian agents were behind the killing of two Pakistani nationals, Mohammad Riaz in Rawalakot in Azad Jammu and Kashmir last September and in the following month Shahid Latif in Sialkot. Both men were Kashmiris.
“We have documentary, financial and forensic evidence of the involvement of the two Indian agents who masterminded these assassinations,” said Qureshi. During the recent months India is also believed to have targeted several individuals linked to the uprising in the illegally Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir as well as some prominent Sikhs in different parts of this country.
This is the first time though that Pakistan has come out to hold India responsible for its illegal and immoral actions, demanding that it be held accountable for its “blatant violation of international law”. Predictably, New Delhi swiftly termed it “malicious anti-India propaganda.”
Substantiating Islamabad’s assertions are at least two solid cases. Last September Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had accused the Indian government, based on evidence provided by US intelligence agencies, of orchestrating the killing of a Canadian Sikh activist outside a Gurdwara near Vancouver.
Then, too, India had vehemently denied involvement, and retaliated by expelling several Canadian diplomats. Relations between the two countries have remained strained since. Soon afterwards, the US discovered a plot directed by an Indian government employee to assassinate a dual US-Canadian citizen, Guptawant Singh Pannun, another member of a Sikh separatists group living in New York.
As it turned out, the Indian official had agreed to pay $100,000 to a man who in fact was an undercover agent. The US Justice Department charged the mastermind of that aborted scheme with an elaborate plot to assassinate Pannun.
However, careful not to disturb its strategic partnership with India the White House sufficed to say it had raised the issue with India at the highest levels. And equally eager not to hurt that relationship New Delhi expressed “surprise and concern” over the episode, promising to investigate security concerns raised by the US.
Considering the state of relations between the two counties, this grave issue cannot be sorted out through diplomatic channels, like the US’ case. Pakistan needs to hold India accountable for its defiance of the basic rules of states’ conduct through the International Court of Justice.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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