A picture that caused a nation’s collective heart to sink was featured on the front page of all major Indian newspapers in April 2001.
The image showed Bangladeshi people bringing an Indian soldier’s body that was suspended from a bamboo pole by his wrists and feet like a recently killed animal. He was one among the 16 BSF soldiers who were allegedly slain and tortured by Bangladesh Rifles soldiers during a border battle.
The entire country watched helplessly as a fledgling nuclear power did little to stop even small Bangladesh from being humiliated and instead offered timid disapproval. That front-page picture represented what Indians dejectedly thought: that they lived in a “soft State.”
After every terror act, up until the 26/11 Mumbai attack, the label was hung in an even larger type. The political and security sectors of India were caught off guard; the air force did not even know the whereabouts of the terrorist camps in Pakistan to respond. We kept delivering Pakistan dossiers on terrorists it was funding, and Pakistan kept balling those up and throwing them away.
This country has come a long way from that day until Monday when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused Indian intelligence agencies of orchestrating the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, an Indian-designated Khalistani terrorist.
India is now regarded by the rest of the world as a ‘hard State’ — a developing superpower that retaliates against the enemy without hesitation and with incredible force.
The “defensive offence” ideology of National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval, which calls for attacking the source of the offence, is what led to the creation of the new “hard State” moniker. He launched his doctrine as NSA by issuing Pakistan the succinct but powerful warning, “You do one more Mumbai, you lose Balochistan.”
And we have seen defensive offence in action ever since Narendra Modi became prime minister. A drastic shift from India’s previous policy of masochistic restraint was made with the 2015 Myanmar cross-border operation against Naga insurgents, the 2016 surgical strike following the Uri attack across the LoC, and the Balakot airstrike in 2019 after the Pulwama terror attack.
Even China was caught off guard when India firmly established itself in Doklam and responded to China’s homicidal actions at Galwan and Pangong Tso with bloodier retaliation.
India has abandoned its predicted passivity in concerns of internal and external security and adopted a strategy of unpredictable action. The enemy has to consider ten times before launching the next attack when one replies to enemy action with unpredictable force and timing. It’s interesting to note that since Modi entered office in 2014, there have been no terrorist acts that have claimed lives.
However, India’s response to external challenges has recently been expanded to include another strand. the scent of covert action, whether intentionally or accidentally.
More than a dozen of India’s open foes have been assassinated in their safe havens abroad since 2019, and notably in the last 24 months.
It might just be a coincidence. For example, rival gangs may be murdering one another because of the political and economic upheaval that is roiling Pakistan at the moment. This is because there is no government there.
However, the sheer number of kills raises the question of whether India is engaged in a mission akin to the Mossad’s “Wrath of God” operation, which saw Israeli intelligence kill the Munich terrorists of 1972 one by one.
Let’s check in on what has happened to the terrorists who are most wanted in India since 2019 in their ‘safe havens’ abroad.
- In June 2023, two unidentified attackers killed Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, Canada, next to a gurdwara. He was listed as a wanted terrorist by India, and the NIA was offering a reward of USD 10,000 for information leading to his capture. He had used a phoney passport to smuggle himself into Canada.
- In PoK in September 2023, Rayaz Ahmed, also known as Abu Qasim, was shot to death.
- At the Peshawar madrassa where he was hiding, Maulana Masood Azhar is said to have averted a significant explosion in 2019. But since then, the most wanted terrorist has not made an appearance in public, leading to rumours that he has passed away.
- In Rawalpindi in February 2023, Hizbul Mujahideen leader Bashir Ahmed Peer was fatally shot at close range.
- Syed Khalid Raza, the commander of the Al Badr, was shot once in the head in Karachi in February 2023, and he died as a result.
- Avtar Singh Khanda, a khalistani radical who attacked the Indian mission in the UK, passed away from “unknown causes” in a Birmingham hospital in June 2023.
- ISIS’s top leader from Kashmir, Aijaz Ahmad Ahangar, was reportedly slain in Afghanistan’s Kunar province in February 2023.
- One of the hijackers of IC-814 from Jaish-e-Mohammed, Mistry Zahoor Ibrahim, who had slit passenger Rupin Katyal’s throat, was shot dead in Karachi in March 2022.
- In May 2023, two assailants shot and killed Paramjit Singh Panjwar of the Khalistan Commando Force in Lahore.
- Lal Mohammed, a suspected ISI operative involved in pushing fake currency into India, was chased and shot dead on the outskirts of Kathmandu last year.
- Khalistani terrorist Harwinder Rinda mysteriously dies in Lahore hospital in November 2022, reportedly of a drug overdose.
- A day later, Khalistani terrorist and Rinda’s aide Happy Sanghera was killed in Italy.
- Within 24 hours, Khalistani terrorist Kulwinderjit Singh Khanpuria was likely brought from Bangkok, arrest was shown in Delhi.
- In June 2021, a powerful blast rocks UN-designated global terrorist Hafiz Saeed, founder of Lashkar-e-Toiba.
- Earlier, Talha Saeed, one the top aides of Hafiz Saeed, was injured in a blast in Lahore.
The head of the Intelligence Bureau was questioned about covert killing missions less than ten years ago. If it did, then why didn’t it do what Israel did and wear it on its sleeves?
“Indians are culturally not really for such action,” he had stated while sipping tea on the lawns of his Lutyens’ mansion.
In the eight or nine years since it was true, it has become false. Raucous Indians regarded Trudeau’s outburst as confirmation of their suspicions that India had lost its security timidity under Modi and Doval.
It is impossible to determine if the 15 attacks and fatalities I have listed in this article were carried out by India. However, despite our adamant denials, a global impression of India as a harsh, unforgiving State has gradually taken shape.
A senior member of India’s security establishment once claimed that Pakistan had made it cheap and simple for India to strike it whenever it wanted by radicalising and keeping its sizable people in poverty.
“For as low as Rs 10,000, we may hire hitmen from any road in Lahore, Karachi, or Peshawar to cause trouble inside Pakistan. They must invest millions of dollars in radicalising, educating, and importing terrorists into India,” he said.
Any nation that harbours terrorists and those who support terrorism in its backyard unintentionally fosters the development of a vicious ecosystem like Pakistan that one day turns against its host.
That terrifying hiring forecast has plenty for Canada under Justin Trudeau to fear and learn.
