Reports Yadav possesses two passports, two names, two addresses
ISLAMABAD: Indian media was baffled after Pakistan presented solid proofs of involvement of RAW in carrying out terrorist activities and creating unrest in Karachi and Balochistan and some of ‘investigative stories’ printed by it only strengthen the evidences put forward by Islamabad before the world.
Basically in an attempt to vindicate Indian elite intelligence agency Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) from the charges levelled in the confessional statement of Indian Navy officer Kulbhushan Yadav, ‘The Indian Express’ investigated the Yadav’s claims and put forward some additional facts which all substantiate charges levelled by Pakistan.
Indian Express reported, “Indian intelligence officials, meanwhile, pointed to multiple errors in Yadav’s testimony to assert that it may have been coerced. For example, Yadav says he reported to a joint secretary in RAW called Anil Kumar Gupta. There is, however, no one by that name at any senior rank in the agency or a position of joint secretary, RAW.
However, this fact yet needs to be investigated as it has been an established practice in many countries that most of the intelligence officers work with changed names which in many cases are not even shared with the officials of the same organisation. This simple clarification that ‘no such official exists in RAW’ made no sense as many other relevant facts establish Yadav’s involvement in Indian state sponsored terrorist activities in Pakistan.
Indian Express reported, “Yadav says that he was recruited by RAW in 2013, but adds that he established “a base” in Iran’s Chabahar 10 years earlier, making clandestine journeys to Karachi and Balochistan”.
Again this is irrelevant and doesn’t refute Yadav’s claim that he was undertaking different intelligence operations while staying in Chabahar area of Iran. According to his statement, initially he was only collecting information and doing some assigned tasks. He used words, “I was picked by RAW in 2013” which clearly means after 2013 he was directly reporting to RAW and was undertaking operations assigned to him by RAW . It is obvious there is not a single intelligence outfit in India and there are multiple organisations and tiers in intelligence framework.
Indian Express reported, “Yadav says he “served in the Indian Navy till around December 2001” soon after the Parliament attack, after he allegedly began gathering domestic intelligence. Later, he claims to be a serving officer in the navy, scheduled for retirement in 2022.”
Again these two statements are not contradictory as this is well known fact that officers serving in defence forces in India undertake different assignments, including intelligence related assignments, while continuing their attachment with their parent department/defence force. As an officer of Indian Navy, Yadav continued serving as a regular navy officer on navy related assignments but later he was given an assignment related to intelligence and he was to be retired as navy officer in 2022.
Indian Express reported, “through the video, during which there are several mid-sentence cuts suggesting that it was hurriedly spliced together, Yadav refers to “criminal activity” and payments to Baloch insurgents. There are, however, no specific details”.
Again this is a strange argument. All basic details are shared with concrete evidences which establish his being a RAW agent and undertaking terrorism related activities and the specific details, if needed, can be shared/released later.
The paper reported, “facts pieced together by The Indian Express show no evidence Yadav worked for Indian intelligence services, but raises intriguing questions about how he ended up in Iran in the first place. In November 2003, Yadav obtained a passport (E6934766) from Pune, identifying him by the pseudonym Hussein Mubarak Patel”.
The Indian newspaper here put forwarded a baseless claim that his connection with Indian intelligence services has not been established but in the same sentence it has itself raised serious questions on Yadav’s activities while being a regular officer of Indian Navy. The newspaper, on basis of its investigations, admits that Yadav was an Indian Navy officer. It hasn’t given any evidence in the story that Yadav resigned or was expelled from the Indian Navy but the story adds that he “obtained” a passport with a fake Muslim name Hussein Mubarak Patel in November 2003 from Pune city of India and landed only in Chabahar area of Iran which is very near to Pakistan’s border.
The basic question is as to why a serving Hindu Indian Navy officer needed a fake passport that too with a Muslim name and more importantly for landing in a city near Pakistan’s border? When Indian newspaper “The Indian Express” was making all these claims to vindicate RAW, it should have claimed in clearest terms that Yadav was removed from Indian Navy to make its case a little attractive. Instead, Indian Express admits that Yadav was promoted as commander after 14 years of service (in 2003) when he moved on to obtain a passport with a fake Muslim name. It is obvious from this fact reported by a leading Indian newspaper that Yadav was not removed from Indian Navy in 2003 as he was promoted. There is only one reference in coming para of story in form of a confusing quote of an ex-colleague of Yadav that he left service. The one making statement is not sure about his words and the newspaper itself confirming that Yadav was made commander in 2003.
So question arises here what kind of assignment Yadav was to undertake as a regular officer of Indian Navy by obtaining a fake passport with a Muslim name to land in a city near Pakistani border without losing his commissioned job? Indian Express till needs evidence of Yadav’s working for Indian Intelligence.
Indian Express reported, “Born in 1968 (according to the passport), Yadav joined the National Defence Academy in 1987, and was commissioned as a Naval engineer in 1990. According to colleagues, he rose to the rank of commander after 14 years of service — one more than is the norm”.
These facts reported by Indian Express are already discussed in above para. Indian Express further reported, “but within months of his passport being issued in Pune; Yadav ended up in the Chabahar free trade zone, then a hub of Indian hopes to set up a transit route into Afghanistan and Iran.
He told his family he was setting up a business to service trawlers and ferries operating out of the port, said friends. To two friends in the navy, who declined to be identified, Yadav gave varying accounts of why he had left the service. To one, he dropped broad hints of being involved in government-linked activity. “He never showed up at the usual reunion kind of things. He’d pretty much disappeared,” said one friend.
This para of Indian Express story once again establishes that after being promoted as a ‘commander’ in Indian Navy, Yadav obtained fake passport with a Muslim name and landed in Chabahar and only informed his family and close colleagues about his future endeavours that he will be “involved in government-linked activity”. It is obvious that such high level sensitive intelligence assignments are not shared even with colleagues in detail.
Indian Express further reports, “the address given to obtain his passport — the Martand Cooperative Housing Society in the Sai Vishwa area of Pune suburb Bavdhan — is incomplete. The records do not even state which apartment Yadav may have occupied in the three-building complex. Vijay Deshmukh, secretary of the building society, said records show no apartment was owned by anyone with the surnames Yadav or Patel. None of the residents recognised Yadav from a photograph shown to them. However, Deshmukh said, “in the past, the norms of registration of tenants with police were not as stringent as they are these days”.
Electronic tags on the Pune passport office’s computer system show an earlier passport was held by Hussain Mubarak Patel but there were no details of the address this document was issued for since it was done before computerised records were introduced. “It’s a common method to pick up a fake identity. The fact that there is an earlier passport with valid visas makes getting new ones that much easier,” said a Delhi police officer. “But I can’t think why an intelligence officer should have gone through this subterfuge to obtain a pseudonymous passport. Let’s put it this way: there are systems in place to handle this kind of thing,” said a former RAW officer.”
Now these details investigated and reported by “The Indian Express” clearly establish that after being promoted as commander in 2003, Yadav gave fake addresses for obtaining a passport in a Muslim name to travel to Iran near Pakistan’s border. These facts simply reinforce the case put forward by Pakistan and these are simple procedures followed before undertaking such assignments in order to ensure not to leave any shadows/evidences behind. Indian newspaper tried to confuse the issue by quoting a RAW officer that an intelligence officer never needs to pass through such procedures and thus Yadav was doing so as an ordinary citizen. However, the newspaper simply forgot to properly detach Yadav from Indian Navy after getting a promotion as commander. For obtaining passport and travelling abroad some formalities are to be fulfilled anyway.
Indian Express further reported, “little is known of Yadav’s life in Iran — there are no records and his family has declined to publicly discuss details of his business or life. Government sources say he owned a small cargo-shipping business and dealt in scrap metal. The embassy in Tehran also had no contact with him, sources said.”
It is obvious that little will be known about Yadav’s life in Iran to Indian journalists because Iran is a different country. His family refusal to come on record is also a standard operating procedure in such cases relating to intelligence officials. Embassies are not necessarily in contact with all agents of their countries operating in the country they are stationed. The details of Yadav’s life in Iran are present with Pakistan with all evidences.
It further reported, “there’s a lot of human trafficking through Chabahar with traffickers routing migrants from India and Pakistan seeking to go west,” said an Indian businessman based there. Like many border zones, Chabahar is also a listening post for intelligence services, including RAW, where information is sold on everything from shipping and construction activity to trafficking”. None of these contradict charges made by Pakistan.
Indian Express further reports, “in 2014, Yadav obtained the passport he was eventually arrested with in Pakistan, L9630722, issued in Thane. This time, he identified himself as a resident of the Jasdanwala Complex on the old Mumbai-Pune road cutting through Navi Mumbai. The flat, municipal records show, was owned by his mother Avanti Yadav. This time, he made no effort to conceal his identity. “He came just once every few years but would talk to everyone,” said a salesman at a bike shop on the ground floor. To one resident, who asked about his excellent Marathi, he claimed to be a Muslim businessman born in Satara. Building society chairman, S. Bhoir said Avanti Avanti Yadav told him he “was a close family friend”. Last November, Yadav made his final visit to the building. “There was another man accompanying him. They were talking about vacating the flat and selling it,” said a resident. In the video, Yadav says he was arrested on March 3”. Again none of these reported facts contradict any of the charges made by Pakistan.
Indian Express concludes its story as, “intelligence officials said New Delhi was working with Iran to establish if Yadav may have been lured into Pakistan, or kidnapped. “The fact that he was caught with a passport is a giveaway. We might not be the world’s greatest spies, but we are not idiots either,” said one of them.”
The question arises if Yadav, to whom India acknowledges as its citizen, has been kidnapped, why it failed to highlight its interactions with Tehran to probe kidnapping of one of its citizens, in fact a senior navy officer, during all these days. Passport was recovered from Yadav and this argument of being a ‘smart intelligence agency’ cannot refute all the facts proved regarding his involvement in terrorist activities and assignments detailed above.
On the other hand, Indian newspaper “India Today” has claimed citing its access to some intelligence reports that Yadav was arrested by one fundamentalist group ‘Jaish-ul-Adal’ and was brought to Pakistan. The “India Today” report further claims that Jaish-ul-Adal, comprising 500 militants, is a subsidiary of al-Qaeda and operates from Balochistan.
The same has no weight as after passing of so many days, India could not tell when and how it has taken up this kidnapping issue with Iranian government. This clearly seems to be a move to avoid embarrassment India is facing at international level after being caught
red-handed supporting state terrorism in a neighbouring country.