India and state-sponsored terrorism

India is accused of sponsoring terrorism in Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Terrorism in Pakistan has been focused in the Baluchistan province where separatist groups have been allegedly financed by the Indian intelligence agency RAW since 1977. In 2015, Pakistan accused India of carrying out "economic sabotage". Terrorism in Sri Lanka has been attributed to TELO and LTTE, both of which were allegedly financed and trained by RAW. There are also allegations that RAW is involved in supporting home grown terrorist elements inside India.

Sri Lanka

Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi decided to support the Tamil insurgents in 1983, and within one year the Indian intelligence agency RAW created thirty training camps in Tamil Nadu, which provided sanctuary, financial support, training and arms to more than 20,000 insurgents. The initial training was usually provided at certain Indian military camps located in Uttar Pradesh, while special training was given at special RAW centers in New Delhi, Bombay, and Vishakhapatnam. The recruits deemed capable for the most sensitive training were trained at India’s "most prestigious military academy" near Dehra Dun. Although the Indian government banned the group in 1987 during the Indo-Sri Lankan accord, the LTTE continued to operate freely and continued to have links with RAW until the defeat of the LTTE in 2009. Lieutenant general Depinder Singh, the Overall commander of the IPKF in Sri Lanka from July 1987 to March 1990 states that even when the IPKF was engaged in fighting the LTTE, RAW was engaged in aiding and training the terrorists. According to journalists, TELO was selected for training in India before LTTE, but this led to a competition erupting between the two factions; which created a further rift between the two rebel organizations. But even after this rift nearly every functioning terrorist cadre was given training facilities by the Indian government.

The Sri Lankan President's secretary Lalith Weeratunga alleged that India's intelligence agency RAW had a "big hand in planning and executing terrorist strikes" in Sri Lanka, and "India aided and abetted terrorism, repeatedly violated Sri Lankan sovereignty".

Rohan Gunaratne in his book Sri Lanka Tamil Insurgency alleged that from August 1983 to May 1987, India, through RAW, provided arms, training and monetary support to six Sri Lankan Tamil insurgent groups including the LTTE. During that period, 32 training camps were set up in India to train these 495 LTTE insurgents, including 90 women who were trained in 10 batches. The first batch of insurgents was trained in Establishment 22 based in Chakrata, Uttarakhand. The second batch, including LTTE intelligence chief Pottu Amman, trained in Himachal Pradesh. Prabakaran visited the first and the second batch of Tamil Tigers to see them training. Eight other batches of LTTE were trained in Tamil Nadu. Thenmozhi Rajaratnam alias Dhanu, who carried out the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and Sivarasan—the key conspirator were among the militants trained by RAW, in Nainital, India.

In April 1984, the LTTE formally joined a common militant front, the Eelam National Liberation Front (ENLF), a union between LTTE, the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO), the Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS), the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) and the Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF).

Pakistan

India's Research and Analysis Wing supported the separatist/nationalist terrorist organization called Al Zulfiqar since 1977 and continued with their operations inside Pakistan even after Al Zulfiqar was disbanded in 1989.

This terrorist group conducted hijacking in March 1981 of a Pakistan International Airlines plane from Karachi to Kabul. In 1982 a camp was set up at Surya Nagar, Delhi to receive members of Al-Zulfiqar. After training them in the use of firearms and subversive activities they were given missions and infiltrated back into Pakistan.

In December 1994, Pakistan ordered the closure of the Indian consulate in Karachi and accused it for "sponsoring terrorism" and violence in the city. According to Pakistani foreign minister Najmuddin Shaikh, the consulate had been coordinating "networks of agents trained for the purposes of conducting terrorism and other anti-state activity" and Pakistan had arrested 14 people to this effect who claimed to have recruited by India's intelligence. The Indian high commissioner S. K. Lambah denied the accusation, and foreign ministry spokesperson termed the allegation "completely false".

In 2015, a BBC report quoted Pakistani officials stating that Indian intelligence had "trained hundreds of MQM militants in explosives, weapons and sabotage" over the past decade, within camps located in India.

A cable dating back to 2009 showed that UAE officials believed India was secretly supporting Tehreek-e-Taliban insurgents in northwest Pakistan.

According to N. Elahi, in response to Pakistan's alleged support of separatist movement in Kashmir and Indian Punjab, India sponsored terrorist activities across Pakistan in 1980s. According to Pakistani military expert Ayesha Siddiqa, these terrorists acts were conducted by the two cells of RAW, Counter Intelligence Team-X (CIT-X) and Counter Intelligence Team-J, that were specially set up for this purpose in mid 1980s. In January 1999, Subhash Chander, an Indian national was arrested by Pakistan's security agencies for carrying out sabotage activities including bomb blasts.

Two Research and Analysis Wing recruits were arrested by Pakistan while infiltrating from Jammu and Kashmir to Azad Kashmir across the Line of Control on 4 May 1994. The infiltrators were carrying explosives and rocket launchers.

Insurgency in Balochistan

Main article: insurgency in Balochistan

RAW has an extensive network of agents inside Pakistan and supported dissident elements in that country. In 2016, Pakistan arrested Kulbhushan Yadav, a RAW agent who confessed that he has been involved in terrorist activities in Balochistan and Karachi. India has allegedly been supporting insurgency in Balochistan, Pakistani Government and ISI have accused Indian consulates in Kandahar and Jalalabad, Afghanistan, for providing arms, training and financial aid to the BLA in an attempt to destabilize Pakistan.

Pakistan has repeatedly accused India of supporting Baloch rebels, and Wright-Neville writes that outside Pakistan, some Western observers also believe that India secretly funds the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA). In August 2013, US Special Representative James Dobbins said Pakistan's fears over India's role in Afghanistan were “not groundless".

A diplomatic cable sent 31 December 2009, from the U.S. consulate in Karachi and obtained by WikiLeaks said it was "plausible" that Indian intelligence was helping the Baluch insurgents. An earlier 2008 cable, discussing the Mumbai attacks reported fears by British officials that "intense domestic pressure would force Delhi to respond, at the minimum, by ramping up covert support to nationalist militants fighting the Pakistani army in Baluchistan."

However, Richard Holbrooke who was United States Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2009 stated that Pakistan didn't provide any credible evidence to back their accusations against India.

India

In 2011, the Guardian published an opinion piece which mentioned that India is a safe haven for many Hindutva extremists and that the Indian Government has turned a blind eye to many Saffron terror groups that operate within its territory. It urged the Indian Government to crack down on various terror groups that operate with impunity.

The Indian-based Hindutva extremist group Abhinav Bharat have links with the Indian Army and with RAW. Some of its members such as Swami Aseemanand, Lt Col Shrikant Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, Lokesh Sharma, Kamal Chauhan, Sunil Joshi and Rajendra Choudhary allegedly carried out the Malegaon terrorist bombings, the 2007 Samjhauta Express bombings, the Malegaon blasts, Mecca Masjid bombing and the Ajmer Sharif Dargah blast.

Bibliography

• Dan G. Cox; John Falconer; Brian Stackhouse (1 September 2010), Terrorism, Instability, and Democracy in Asia and Africa, UPNE, p. 125, ISBN 978-1-55-553746-3
• British Broadcasting Corporation (1998), Summary of World Broadcasts: Asia, Pacific, Issues 3294-3306, The University of Michigan, Pakistan itself continues to be the target of Indian-sponsored terrorist activities
• Pakistan & Gulf Economist, Volume 20, The University of California, 2001, Pakistan had already suffered a lot by Indian sponsored terrorism since independence.
• Richard Bennett (24 April 2012), Espionage: Spies and Secrets, Random House, p. I, ISBN 978-1-44-813214-0
• Ahmed Rashid (2008), Descent Into Chaos: The US and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, Penguin, p. 286, ISBN 978-0-67-001970-0, There was little doubt that India was supporting Baloch insurgency
• Khalid Mahmud Arif (1995), Working With Zia: Pakistan's Power Politics 1977-1988, Oxford University Press, p. 267, ISBN 978-0-19-577570-9
• Bruce Riedel (28 July 2014), What We Won: America's Secret War in Afghanistan, 1979-89, Brookings Institution Press, p. 38, ISBN 978-0-81-572585-5
• Iqbal Akhund (2000), Trial and Error: The Advent and Eclipse of Benazir Bhutto, Oxford University Press, p. 26, ISBN 978-0-19-579160-0
• Rohan Gunaratna; Douglas Woodall (26 January 2015), Afghanistan after the Western Drawdown, Rowman & Littlefield, p. 20-22, ISBN 978-1-44-224506-8
• Congressional Record, January 24, 2000 to February 23 2000, Government Printing Office, 2004, p. 453
• Zuhair Kashmeri; Brian McAndrew (6 September 2005), Soft Target: The Real Story Behind the Air India Disaster - Second Edition, James Lorimer & Company, ISBN 978-1-55-028904-6

This article "India and state-sponsored terrorism" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

📰 Article(s) of the same category(ies)

• State Sponsors of Terrorism

---