RAW

Capital suggestion

RAW and Tamil Tigers: According to the Jain Commission, which was set up by PM Narasimha Rao, India trained five extremist organisations using the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) – the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), People’s Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Fron (EPRLF), Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO) and Eelam Revolutionary Organization of Students (EROS).

The Indian Air Force undertook ‘Operation Poomalai’ to help the besieged Tamil Tigers in the town of Jaffna. The Jain Commission says that RAW provided camps across Tamil Nadu to each of the five extremist organisations where they learned the deadly tactics of suicide bombing. For the record, one hundred thousand Sri Lankans were killed during the course of the Sri Lankan civil war.

RAW and Balochistan: According to WikiLeaks, “Foreign powers have dangerous designs in Balochistan”, “KGB along with RAW and KHAD had supported insurgency in Balochistan”, and India “is striving hard to destabilize and possibly detach Balochistan from Pakistan.”

On February 27, 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing ‘The Global Intelligence Files’ whereby five million emails were exposed. According to WikiLeaks, militant organisations such as the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and Baloch Liberation Front (BLF) etc are materially and financially funded by CIA, RAW, MI-6, RAAM and Mossad to keep Balochistan destabilised through acts of sabotage and subversion. The BLA alone received Rs50-90 million per month. According to The Hindu of October 8, 2015, “India is preparing to take an aggressive position on Balochistan, in a marked departure from South Block’s Pakistan policy of the past.” The Hindu continues, “The new Indian position over Balochistan became public when Balochistan Liberation Organization (BLO) representative Balaach Pardili addressed a gathering in New Delhi….reading out a statement from BLO’s exiled leader Nawabzada Hyrbyair Marri.

RAW and Mukti Bahini: On May 15, 1971, Indian Army’s Eastern Command officially initiated ‘Operation Jackpot’. RAW had set up training camps in the Indian states of West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram and Tripura. RAW equipped the Mukti Bahini with Italian howitzers, Dakota DC-3 aircraft, Otter DHC-3 fighter planes and Allouette helicopters.

For the record, the Mukti Bahini killed anywhere from 1,000 Biharis (according to the ‘Chronology for Biharis in Bangladesh’) to 150,000 Biharis (according to the ‘Encyclopaedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict’; page 64).

RAW and the TTP: According to leaked WikiLeaks cables, “On December 15, 2009, Treasury Department Acting Assistance Secretary of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis met with senior officials from the United Arab Emirates State Security Department (SSD) and Dubai’s General Department of State Security (GDSS) to discuss suspected Taliban-related financial activity in the UAE.” According to the cable, “GDSS believes that India also has supported Pakistani Taliban and Pakhtun separatists.”

India has six neighbours – Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, China, Nepal and Pakistan. India has had border disputes with China, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. In 1974, India and Sri Lanka resolved their border dispute through an agreement. In 2015, India and Bangladesh resolved their border disputes when the Indian Parliament passed the 100th Amendment Act. India’s border disputes with China, Pakistan and Nepal are yet to be resolved. History is witness that in this part of the world the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) laid the foundation of cross-border terrorism.

The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad.

Email: farrukh15@hotmail.com  Twitter: @saleemfarrukh