Amid fresh threat letters, ISI’s role in setting up special fronts in J&K under lens
New Delhi/Srinagar, Aug 24 (IANS) The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s spy agency is planning to set up several local organisations in Jammu and Kashmir to gather information about the local residents, Kashmiri Pandits in particular, so that they could be targeted to further its wicked and nefarious agenda.
An official, sharing information about modus operandi of such groups, said that meet people, gather information about their work place, residential address and also phone numbers. This information is then shared with the handlers operating from across the border.
Such information is used to carry out hit jobs and also spread fear and panic in the society.
An Intelligence Bureau official said that organisations such as the United Liberation Council (ULC) have been set up for the same purpose. These organisations are dangerous as they masquerade as normal fronts, pretending to work for the society. But, in reality, their purpose is secretly leak information about them.
Such groups are used to provide logistics and other sensitive details so that the ISI can plan terror attacks in the Valley, the official said.
A precise information about the targeted individuals helps the ISI to execute its operations in Jammu and Kashmir, he said and added that the recent hit jobs in the valley were examples of its planning.
The locations and whereabouts of the victims were precise and hence the hit jobs were carried out to perfection, the official explained.
A recent letter that has been circulation threatens those Kashmiri Pandits who have been thinking of relocating and raising their children there.
Such letters and social media posts, circulating at regular gaps, seek to deter the Kashmiri Pandits from trying to return to the Valley.
Post the abrogation of Article 370, Jammu and Kashmir has been largely peaceful. This has encouraged several Kashmiri Pandits to return to Jammu and Kashmir and reclaim what they had left behind when the genocide against them began on January 19 1990.
The threat letters aided by ISI backed elements demanded that the Pandits leave, convert or face death. With such open threats not possible anymore in Jammu and Kashmir, the ISI is resorting to newer threat tactics such as social media posts and circulating letters.
An official said that while such letters have been in circulation in the past as well, the ones that are doing the rounds these days have precise information. The latest letter in circulation has the address and phone numbers of the Kashmiri Pandits.
What is worrying is that information about those Pandits living outside Jammu and Kashmir are also mentioned in these letters. This has been made possible, owing to the ISI’s strategy of setting up of front organisations such as the ULC.
The people and officials with whom the members of such organisations interact must be careful while passing on information as it would be used to carry out hit jobs and also spread panic and fear in Jammu and Kashmir, an official said.
–IANS
vn/mr