INDIAN TERRORISM IN PAKISTAN The Story Of Three Spies And One Saboteur

The death of Sarabjit Singh is a reminder of how India expanded its limited conflict with Pakistan over Kashmir into an all-out animosity.
BACKGROUNDER | 2 May 2013 st Project For Pakistan In 21 Century ProjectPakistan21.org

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Executive Summary
This backgrounder offers a clear, concise and uncluttered argument on Indian terrorism against Pakistan since 1950. It is meticulous work that will help researchers in Pakistan, India and the world understand the genesis of Indian animosity toward a neighbor five times smaller that represents no threat to India. The authors of this document encourage reading the entire dossier to better understand the Executive Summary shown below.

1. Pakistan faced a wave of Indian terrorism in the 1980s and 1990s. The arrest of two spies, Kashmir Singh and Surjeet Singh, and one terroristsaboteur Sarabjit Singh, came in this period. 2. Way before 9/11 and al-Qaeda, India was the first source of State and Non-State terrorism in the region. 3. Pakistans dispute with India was limited to Kashmir at the UNSC. Bilateral relations were normal. But India expanded the conflict into other areas in 1950, 1971, 1974 and 2002. 4. In 1950, three years after Pakistans independence, India launched a proxy war against it from Afghanistan. 5. In 1969, India exploited low Pakistani deployment on East Pakistan border and began organizing and recruiting a terror militia. In 1971, sensing an opportunity, India launched an invasion across international borders, aided by the terror militia, to seize territory and declare it Bangladesh. 6. In 1974, India introduced nuclear weapons in the region. The move was unnecessarily and unprovoked, just like its invasion of Pakistan three years earlier. 7. Evidence and statements by Kashmir Singh and Surjeet Singh to the Indian media confirm that a third terrorist-saboteur Sarabjit Singh was a killer sent by India to eliminate Pakistani civilians in public places.
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8. The cases of the three Indian agents prove how India sent terrorists to Pakistan from 1973 [Kashmir Singh] to 1990 [Sarabjit Singh]. 9. Pakistani track record of treating Indian prisoners, including convicted Indian terrorists, is impeccable. In comparison, India returned a Pakistani PoW without a tongue. India executed a Kashmiri and never returned his body to family. 10. Pakistan has pardoned two Indian spies and released several others without any bodily or mental harm. India never reciprocated. 11. Indian media and government officials clearly exploited the accidental death of convicted Indian terrorist Sarabjit Singh in a prison brawl to whip up anti-Pakistanism and war hysteria. 12. Instead of coming clean and mending fences, India lied to its public about the terrorist activities of its agents in Pakistan and misled the public opinion. 13. In 2002, India returned to Afghanistan to revive anti-Pakistan terror activities, coming full circle since 1950. 14. What drives Indian terror activities against Pakistan since 1950? One answer is: the Hindi-speaking northern Indian minority that rules India. More information is provided in this backgrounder on the so far hidden role of Hindi-speaking north Indians in Indias internal and external conflicts.

Executive Summary Concluded

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INDIAN TERRORISM IS A REALITY Indian officials and media smugly accuse Pakistan of being a source of terrorism. Unfortunately, thanks to the unbridled support from American governments and some lobbies in the American media, India gets away with portraying itself as a victim of terrorism. But the truth is that way before Pakistan ever had a problem with Al-Qaeda presence, India was the source of all state and non-state terrorism in the region. In fact, India introduced state-sponsored and non-state terrorism, mainly targeting Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and China at different times. Soon after independence, both Pakistan and India had a very civilized dispute in a way, conducted at the UN Security Council over Kashmir. Bilaterally, the relationship was normal and friendly, especially from the Pakistani side. Sadly, India quietly sent agents to Afghanistan, then an ungoverned badland, to organize terrorism across Pakistans western borders. India started a proxy war against Pakistan in 1950, merely three years after Pakistans independence. Pakistan then was a very weak state, hardly posed any threat to India. The only reasonable explanation for this Indian move was that Indias ruling Hindi-speaking minority was so determinedly antagonistic toward Pakistan that it pushed both nations on to a course of permanent animosity. [Click here for more on Hindi-speaking minority of northern India] Indian intelligence agents began recruiting and organizing Afghan elements to conduct terrorism inside Pakistans western provinces of Balochistan and NWFP. This was the beginning of what later became to be known as BLA, or the Balochistan Liberation Army, an Indian- and Soviet-created proxy militia tasked with keeping western Pakistan destabilized and attempt to wrestle away the strategic province of Balochistan from Pakistani control. In 1969, Pakistan had a minimal military footprint in East Pakistan, with few soldiers on the Indian border. This showed Pakistani goodwill and good intentions toward India. Islamabad believed its conflict with India was limited to Kashmir and the conflict was adequately managed at the diplomatic level at UNSC. Hence, Pakistan saw no reason for a large military presence along Indias border with East Pakistan where both countries had no conflict. But Pakistan was wrong to trust India. Exploiting this, India in 1969 formed a terror militia called Mukti Bahini. Terror training camps were erected across Indian border regions with East Pakistan.
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A large number of poverty-stricken Pakistani Muslim and Hindu youth were recruited for training. India nurtured this terror militia quietly to be used at an appropriate time. The opportunity presented itself two years later, in 1971, when elections went chaotic in Pakistan and resulted in high political tensions. India exploited the political tensions and the low Pakistani military footprint to launch a large-scale invasion of East Pakistan across international borders, aided by the terror militia it created. Just like 1950, India in 1971 expanded its conflict with Pakistan into a larger conflict. What was just a dispute over Kashmir was now taken to a new level, where India attempted and succeeded in seizing Pakistani territory. India created reasons for Pakistan to avenge the Indian acts of terror. A small minority in New Delhi, drawn from the Hindi-speaking belt of northern India, succeeded in dragging two large nations into a wider conflict. Lets start with the two Indian spies Surjeet and Kashmir Singh, and one Indian saboteur Sarabjit Singh, all working for Indias Research and Analysis Wing [RAW], the Indian external intelligence agency.

THREE INDIAN TERRORISTS In 1973, Pakistani intelligence arrested someone named Ibrahim on the Peshawar-Rawalpindi highway. It was Kashmir Singh, a former Indian Army soldier and a spy for Indian intelligence. Kashmir Singh served in the India Army between 1962 and 1966. According to MediaPoint.pk, here is how he was caught: In 1973, he was arrested on the 22nd Milestone on the Peshawar-Rawalpindi road by Pakistani intelligence officers [] At the time of his arrest, his family included his wife, Paramjit Kaur, and three children under the age of 10. Subsequently in the same year, he was sentenced to death by a Pakistan Army court. This verdict was upheld by a civil court between 1976 and 1977 and a mercy petition followed this, but to no avail. After being sentenced to an indefinite jail term, he said that he was tortured third degree for the first few months by the authorities as they pressurized him to confess to being an Indian spy. Singh was lodged in seven different jails in Pakistan and was kept in solitary confinement and remained chained for 17 long years. In early 2008 a Pakistani human rights minister pleaded with President Pervez Musharraf to release Kashmir Singh because the Indian spy had spent 35 years in jail. Many pro-India lobbyists in Pakistan argued he was not a spy. Musharraf pardoned the Indian and the spy crossed Pakistans eastern border into India on March 4, 2008.

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But to the embarrassment of Indian government and his Pakistani supporters, Kashmir Singh told Indian media he was a spy, that he served his country, and that India abandoned him. [See http://j.mp/11XV13s ]

Surjeet Singh is another Indian spy. He was arrested in Pakistan in 1982 and, like Sarabjit Singh, confessed to working with Indian intelligence and spying on Pakistan. But he did not have any link to organizing bombings inside Pakistan. If he did, Pakistani authorities could not prove it. In 1989, late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto took up his case and asked President Ghulam Ishaq Khan to commute his death sentence, handed down to him by a Pakistan Army Court. Bhutto was trying to improve relations with India and thought releasing a spy working for Indian government would be a goodwill gesture. But she failed to secure his release. Surjeet was released in June 2012 by the government of President Asif Zardari. Sherry Rehman, the Pakistani ambassador to United States, lobbied for his release [See http://j.mp/Kr2qPE ] probably as a gesture to Washington which was keen to see Zardari grant concessions to India to improve relations. Pakistanis were disappointed at how their government failed to hold India responsible for Indian terrorism inside Pakistan over the decades. [See http://j.mp/U3WzE1 ]
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As soon as Surjeet Singh landed in India, he confessed in front of the full glare of national media that he was a RAW spy in Pakistan. [See http://j.mp/QtIrTl & http://j.mp/OADUjt ] Surjeet said he sent vital information from Pakistan to India but accused the Indian government and its spy agency of abandoning him. [See http://j.mp/NYX2q4 ] Surjeet said he was recruited by a Border Security Force [BSF] officer to sneak into Pakistan for espionage. [See http://j.mp/QILwiq ] Most importantly, Surjeet told the Indian media that Sarabjit Singh was a terrorist whom India sent to kill Pakistani civilians. [See http://j.mp/YgLOmo ]

BBC interviewed Surjeet Singh in India in 2012. To understand how India sent terrorists to Pakistan, read BBCs report, Meet Indias Angry Spy Surjeet Singh. [See http://j.mp/105sbKD ]

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Sarabjit Singh is the third high-profile Indian intelligence operative in this story of decades-long Indian terrorism in Pakistan. He also went by the names Jaljit Singh and Manjit Singh. Sarabjit Singh was arrested in Lahore for involvement in a series of bombings in markets and public places in Lahore, Faisalabad and Multan in 1990. Unlike Kashmir Singh and Surjeet Singh, who were spies, Sarabjit is a terrorist, an operative of the Indian government sent to kill Pakistani civilians, spread panic and instability in Pakistani cities, recruit and organize local cells for RAW, and train them to execute bombings in Pakistani cities. Just like Indian saboteurs and spies before him, Sarabjit maintained he was innocent, that he was a simple farmer, and that he strayed into Pakistan. [To have an alibi in case caught, RAW sent spies and terrorists to Pakistan in the 1980s from Indian villages near the Pakistani border. But unfortunately for the Indian government, several Indian spies arrested during that period admitted to affiliation with RAW, thereby rendering this alibi useless. See http://j.mp/11XV13s ] Evidence left little wiggle room for Sarabjit and he was sent to the death row. There was a small controversy in June 2012 when Islamabad pardoned a convicted India spy. The media wrongly mentioned Sarabjits name. The correct name was Surjeet. Sarabjits mercy petition was rejected by former President Pervez Musharraf. Sarabjit was attacked by two Pakistani death row inmates on Friday, April 26, 2013, and nearly beaten to death. The incident occurred during a routine transfer of the convicted Indian terrorist from one prison to another. He was reportedly attacked because the other death row inmates thought the Indian has a campaign working for his release despite his serious crimes while other inmates will be executed for lesser crimes.

HOW PAKISTAN TREATED SARABJIT Pakistani authorities accorded terrorist Sarabjit Singh good treatment, and by all standards far better than how India has treated Pakistani and Kashmiri prisoners so far. He was allowed to meet his Pakistani lawyers. India was given consular access to him, his family was permitted to meet him and communicate with him under supervision. He was given security, exercised in jail and received overall good treatment. Never once during his 22-year jail time did he complain verbally or in writing of bad treatment. This was a generous Pakistani treatment considering he was convicted of killing innocent Pakistani shoppers in market places. He died because of wounds sustained during a brawl with two Pakistani death row inmates. The inmates were
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probably incensed at seeing many Pakistani lawyers and activists campaigning to release the terrorist whereas the other inmates would probably be executed for lesser crimes than the Indian terrorist committed. As usual, the Indian media fed by official sources tried to peddle conspiracy theories about an ISI attempt to kill Sarabjit. These accusations were dismissed by other Indians. Indias own record of treating prisoners is dismal. On February 9, 2013, it executed Kashmiri activist Afzal Guru, seen in India as a terrorist. The execution was done secretly, he was not allowed to meet his family for a last time, the family learned of the execution from the media, Gurus body was strangely buried inside the prison compound, and the family was refused access to the grave and to the body. All of this raised legitimate questions about the possibility that Indian security officials killed Guru during interrogation and hurriedly buried his body inside the jail to hide marks of torture. In 2005, India released a Pakistani prisoner of war, soldier Maqbool Hussain. He was kept in jail for 40 years. When he was released, he had no tongue. It was pulled out during one of the torture sessions by Indian interrogators. Pakistan has received many Pakistani prisoners who left Indian jails permanently damaged either mentally or physically or both.

PAKISTANI MEDIA vs. INDIAN MEDIA The Indian media exploited the death of Indian terrorist Sarabjit Singh in a prison brawl to whip up anti-Pakistanism in India. The propensity of Indian media to beat the drums of war when it comes to Pakistan is disturbing, immature, and indicative of how much the media in the worlds largest democracy is easily controlled by strong lobbies in the government. The Indian media failed to discuss a key question: What was Sarabjit Singh, and before him Kashmir Singh and Surjeet Singh, doing in Pakistan killing innocent civilians?
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Not a single commentator, anchor or guest on mainstream Indian television dared question the Indian government policy of sending terrorists and saboteurs to Pakistan in the 1980s and 1990s. Surprisingly, the Pakistani media played along with the Indian media in giving a pass to Indian terrorism. This shows that, unlike India, the Pakistani media is not in the control of Pakistani government. Pakistani television anchors glorified the Indian terrorist at the expense of fourteen Pakistanis he killed and the dozens of their relatives affected by Indian terrorism. Some Pakistani journalists reported on social media that the countrys main media watchdog, PEMRA, considered sending notices to some Pakistani channels informing them of violations of media code where convicted terrorists must not be glorified.

THE BEHAVIOR OF INDIAN GOVERNEMNT The Indian government is the worst culprit in the saga of Indian spies and terrorists arrested in Pakistan. In the words of those spies released by Pakistan, New Delhi is guilty of sending agents to Pakistan and then abandoning them once they were caught. And even when Islamabad graciously pardoned some of the Indian spies, New Delhi could have used the opportunity to own up to its mistakes, mend fences with Pakistan, and pay compensation to the families of the young spies whose lives and the lives of their families and children it ruined. This is what Indian spy Surjeet Singh demanded in front of the India media as soon as he crossed into India after a Pakistani pardon. Even in the case of Sarabjit Singh, the Indian government could have provided background briefings to the media and the Indian public about the exemplary Pakistani treatment given to Indian convicts accused of spying, how Pakistan released two of them who were convicted of death and several others without trial. Instead, the Indian government chose to help create an anti-Pakistan hysteria inside India and portray the accidental death of terrorist Sarabjit Singh as a premeditated murder blamed on Pakistan.

THE BOTTOM LINE ON INDIAN TERRORISM After starting proxy wars in the region in 1950, and after the unprovoked invasion of Pakistan in 1971, the unprovoked nuclear detonations of 1974, and the wave of Indian terrorism in Pakistani cities in the 1980s and 1990s, India returned to Afghanistan in 2002 to use Afghan soil against Pakistan, much like it did in 1950. It was full circle for India. Instead of Soviet Union, India teamed up this time with the United States and the warlords of the Afghan Northern Alliance. Together they did several things.
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The first order of business was to revive the BLA, or the Balochistan Liberation Army, created during the 1960s and 1970s by India and Soviet Union. The BLA was used unsuccessfully between 2002 and 2012 to incite a civil war inside Pakistani Balochistan. Moreover, the Indians established links to the criminal gangs collectively known as TTP, or the Pakistani Taliban, which specialize in killing Pakistani civilians and soldiers. The TTP was kept alive through mysterious funding and training in Afghanistan despite the near complete strangulation of TTP by Pakistani military. The TTP was being used in a war of attrition against Pakistani military and the State. The chief of staff of Pakistan Army, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, bluntly accused unnamed enemies in the region of using TTP against Pakistan, in his keynote address at a Martyrs Day ceremony on April 30, 2013. Some Afghan officials in the Karzai government have privately told visiting Pakistani journalists that India used Afghan soil against China. According to this account, India is using its own Muslim population to establish terror camps in Afghanistan to train terrorists and send them to Chinas Muslim regions. India also finds Afghanistan a safe place to train Tibetan saboteurs. The shift came after the Tibetan terror camps inside India came under intense Chinese scrutiny. Indian acts of terrorism are also well documented in Kashmir, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. This history of Indian export of terrorism sharply contrasts with the carefully cultivated image as a responsible country. In reality, India is a source of instability, threat and terrorism for its neighbors. As the events of 1971 indicated, no neighbor of India is safe from a possible, unprovoked, Indian invasion or military action when the time is right. THE ROLE OF HINDI-SPEAKING INDIANS It is important to note that this determinedly hostile and aggressive Indian policy does not have the approval of all Indians. While boasting a billion citizens, power in New Delhi is controlled by a minority of Hindi-speaking north Indians. Western, southern and eastern Indians see Hindi-speaking north Indians as arrogant, less educated, superiority-complexed, and as bigots blamed for pogroms against Indian religious minorities like Christians, Dalits, Sikhs and Muslims. Most cases of killing of unborn female babies, the highest in the world, are also concentrated among Hindi-speaking north Indians who maintain a derogatory attitude toward women. The Hindi-speaking north Indians are responsible for prolonging Indias conflict with Pakistan on Kashmir, for the war with China in 1962, and for Indias unstable history with several neighbors.
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Why the Hindi-speaking north Indians are blamed by everyone? One explanation is that north India suffered the maximum number of foreign invasions and foreign rule over India through history. The last two occupiers of India subdued Hindi-speaking north Indians for ten centuries. First, the Muslim dynasties that led to Pakistan ruled the region for nearly nine hundred years, forcing Hindi-speaking north Indians to adopt Persian and Urdu as elite languages, and adopt Pakistani dressing styles and social mannerisms. Later, the British subjugated north Indians for over a century until they left, freeing the Hindi-speaking north Indians for the first time in a millennium. After 1947, the pent up anger of Hindi-speaking north Indians translated itself into genocide against Sikhs, Christians and Muslims. The worst recipients of the ire of Indias Hindi-speaking minority are Pakistan and the Kashmiris. The Kashmiris are the worst affected, where an army of mostly Hindi-speakers has pillaged Kashmir, dug mass graves for Kashmiri men, and followed an official policy of raping Kashmiri women. It is unfair that a Hindi-speaking minority is dragging all the Indian peoples to future wars and conflict with neighbors as a result of a deeply flawed policy that favors the interests and the worldview of the Hindi-speaking minority. The rest of the Indians need to ask themselves important questions: Is it fair that Hindi-speaking north Indians are forcing the rest of India into wars with neighbors? Is it in the interest of those Indians who do not speak Hindi to waste their resources on conflicts that Hindi-speakers start? The rest of Indians are more affluent, more hardworking, and more peaceful than the Hindi-speaking belt of north India. Should not the government in New Delhi reflect the views of the rest of India and not just the historical insecurities of the Hindi-speaking minority? These questions are central to the larger debate over the history of Indian terrorism in Pakistan.
[THIS BACKGROUNDER IS CONCLUDED]

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MISSION
To help and guide the citizens of Pakistan, the Federal Government and the Pakistan Armed Forces in sustaining and improving the core structure of the Pakistani State. Our project is organized around a basic idea that a proud history creates a nation of achievers. And that the Pakistani nation must be assertive in promoting its legitimate interests. Pakistan has made tremendous strides in its first seven decades. It needs to draw lessons of unity from its long history as a descendant of major empires in our region. This helps Pakistanis unite and understand their place in the region and in the books of history. For a better future, the Pakistani State must create citizens who are proud of their past. This confidence can then be used by the Pakistani State to create globalist citizens, proud Pakistani nationalists driven to excel in todays world, in cooperation with all peaceful nations. Pakistan requires a solid and stable political system suited to its domestic environment, and strong Armed Forces geared toward protecting the Pakistani space. Our vision is to help build a rapid and lethal military force in light of our modern and historical experiences in our larger surrounding pace. Pakistan is capable of packaging and exporting its robust culture, arts and music. Pakistan must move fast to harness its astounding potential in trade and as a market that can produce immense wealth and lead to attractive living standards for its citizens and worldwide capital investors. Pakistan has wasted two decades: the last of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first. We must ensure we utilize the remaining nine decades of this century to execute our plan for Pakistans rise.

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ABOUT PROJECT PAKISTAN 21 Project for Pakistan In 21st Century is a nonpartisan, nonprofit pool of Pakistani talent in diplomacy, media, military, education, economy and science. Its short name is Project Pakistan 21. It seeks to position Pakistan and its people for success in 21st century. It recognizes that a debilitated and rusty system of politics and governance in Pakistan cannot create a strong nation and needs to be changed top to bottom. To this end, Project Pakistan 21 intends to integrate Pakistans twin assets of human resource and strong institutions to play their role in Pakistans rebirth as a stable, proud, strong, independent and prosperous nation. OUR HISTORY Pakistan is a nation and a people extracted from the great cultures and blood lines going back to Turks, Persians, Arabs and Aryans. This history spans ten centuries and beyond of progressive contribution to arts, culture, science, trade and politics. Todays Pakistanis are cosmopolitan, resourceful and active contributors to the global march of civilization just as their ancestors were at their zenith. The lowest point in Pakistans history was the ninety years between the downfall of the Mughal Empire in 1857 and the rise of independent Pakistan in 1947. The trials of that period galvanized the Pakistani nation and spurred an impressive political and legal movement, spearheaded by patriotic, educated and resourceful leaders who triumphed with the rise of independent Pakistan on August 14, 1947. OUR FUTURE Pakistans future lies in creating and grooming ruling political elites committed in absolute terms to this idea of Pakistan and the prosperity and wellbeing of its citizens; a strong federal government sitting atop a power structure consisting of a dozen or more administrative provinces, or states, with directly elected governors and local parliaments. A political system that encourages the rise of national-level parties and discourages and bans politics based on ethnicity, language, sect or any divisive theory. We believe that the focus of governance in the first three decades of the twenty-first century in Pakistan should be on economy, trade, energy, infrastructure and education. Politics must not have a priority in this period. An independent media and judiciary can and should continue informing and watching the performance of the state and public servants even within a controlled, Economy First political system. This, in essence, creates the Pakistani model for development. Bold democratic reforms are required for a strong Pakistani state. Pakistans early plunge into Westminster-style political system was premature and did not take into account the young nations need for focus, discipline and organization immediately after Independence. National life in Pakistan needs to be depoliticized to the extent of liberating the talents of Pakistani people in arts, religion, culture, music, business, academia and sports. Politics in this period must not become a national sport. The State must help create an environment where every Pakistani citizen can contribute to increasing GDP and generating wealth. Pakistans vibrant media should be strengthened to take Pakistans voice to the world through films, books, music, documentaries and news media.

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Pakistan needs to harness its geostrategic strengths to their fullest potential across multiple platforms, from tourism to business to the military. Education must be tailored and imposed to create productive and globalist Pakistani citizens. The end game is to have men and women who are anchored in pride in Pakistans history and its Islamic heritage, which unites Pakistanis from all religious backgrounds and persuasions and grants equal opportunity to Pakistani Christians, Sikhs, Parsis, Hindus and others. Pakistans citizens and state are open to the world in the best traditions of Islamic golden period. In this context, Project Pakistan 21 will soon be floating a national document titled, A Smart Coup: Pakistan Strategic Readjustment Program For 21st Century. The document proposes a roadmap for achieving the above objectives. Our goal is that by 2030, Pakistan must be recognized as a politically stable and dynamic nation with a firm grip on its domestic politics and international relations. This is the vision that we at Project For Pakistan In 21st Century aims to achieve.

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