Shome Basu*
India’s ace spy Ajit Doval is now on the warrant list by the United States of America’s Federal court along with previous RAW secretary Samant Goel.
Doval becomes the country’s first National Security Advisor to come under the US scanner for ‘bumping’ (exterminating) an American citizen, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, whom India considers a terrorist.
Who is Pannun?
Pannun was born in Amritsar and holds dual citizenship in the USA and Canada. He is an advocate and heads the Sikhs For Justice which sympathises with the cause of a separate state of Khalistan.
Owing to the history of the Punjab insurgency and the demand for Khalistan, which claimed the life of former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and killed 400 passengers in the Kanishka bombing incident, India has banned such organisations that promote secession from India in the name of Khalistan.
India’s security establishment has maintained surveillance on Pannun, having designated him as a terrorist and targeted his agricultural properties in Punjab. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India’s liaison with Interpol, requested a Red Corner Notice against Pannun. However, due to insufficient evidence, the request was unsuccessful, and he remains at large.
US Indictment
While Doval was summoned by a US court last month, this week America’s FBI has formally put out a lookout notice for an Indian intelligence officer, Vikash Yadav alias Vikas alias Amanat (Code-name for communication). He’s supposed to be the conduit working under India’s premier spy agency, RAW, to give orders to Nikhil Gupta who is now in a US prison.
An assistant commandant from the CRPF, and previously posted in Kashmir Valley, Yadav was absorbed into the RAW and used as a field officer to collect intelligence. If the American allegations are to be believed, Yadav was tasked to do the ‘dirty job’ of eliminating US and Canadian citizens with purported Khalistani links.
Suppose this is not a case of rogue elements within the RAW operating on their own. In that case, the charges are extremely grave as they bring to question the role of the Indian Prime Minister who is the head of the Cabinet Secretariat of which the RAW Chief is an important part. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has already named a ‘top Indian official’ called ‘Shah’, presumably Amit Shah, India’s Home Minister in the killing of a Canadian Sikh, Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
However, India has completely refuted the allegations and declared that Vikas Yadav is no longer working with the government but is at large.
Nijjar Case
Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian citizen and prominent Sikh diaspora leader advocating for Khalistan (an independent Sikh homeland in northern India), was fatally shot on June 18, 2023, outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, British Columbia.
Three men – Kamalpreet Singh (22), Karan Brar (22), and Karanpreet Singh (28) – have been charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. These suspects, who were in Canada on temporary visas, allegedly had connections to Lawrence Bishnoi’s criminal organization and were reportedly used by Indian intelligence agencies to eliminate Nijjar, involved with the Khalistan movement.
Following Nijjar’s assassination, Canada had accused India’s RAW of direct involvement, expelling station chief Pavan Kumar Rai, a 1997-batch IPS officer, who served as political counselor in Ottawa. India retaliated by expelling 40 Canadian diplomats. The situation escalated when the FBI arrested Nikhil Gupta, a former CRPF officer, in Prague.
Gupta, allegedly working with RAW official Vikram Yadav, was caught discussing assassination plans with someone who turned out to be a double agent.
The subsequent New York court charges revealed plans targeting US-based Khalistan supporters, exposing RAW’s alleged involvement through electronic evidence and officer testimonies.
Were Khalistani Supporters A Threat?
The Khalistan movement, which sought an independent Sikh state, had largely subsided in India by the 1990s following aggressive counter-insurgency operations led by officials like KPS Gill. Punjab returned to normalcy, with the separatist threat appearing largely neutralized.
However, the movement found new life in 2018 with the opening of the Kartarpur corridor, when activists like Gopal Singh Chawla in Pakistan and Gurpatwant Singh Pannun and Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada began reviving Khalistan advocacy.
The situation intensified when the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), BJP’s longtime ally in Punjab, broke away from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) during the farmers’ protests over the Minimum Support Price (MSP).
As the BJP lost political ground in Punjab, the Khalistan issue reportedly gained strategic importance. When diaspora voices from Canada, the UK, and the USA began aligning with the farmers’ protests, Indian intelligence allegedly viewed these developments as threatening, leading to reported considerations of neutralizing these voices through various means.
Mossad Playbook
These assassinations and murder plots highlight the changing style of operation of the intelligence spy agencies. A look at RAW’s operations in the past and now are illustrative.
Back in 1984-85, a Khalistan activist named Kuldeep Singh Chawla, a Bengali-speaking Sikh from West Bengal, who had settled in Canada, threatened several Indian officials: High Commissioner SJS Chatwal, RAW Station Chief Sunder Kumar Sharma, and IB Station Chief Maloy Krishna Dhar.
Despite the intense threats during those turbulent times, these diplomats continued their work in Canada. Dhar, working under the cover of Press Attaché at the High Commission, was tasked with gathering intelligence from Gurudwaras. Similarly, RAW’s Sharma focused on collecting intelligence, but importantly, neither was assigned to eliminate targets or disrupt organizations.
In contrast, recent allegations reveal that India has adopted tactics similar to Mossad in the attempted assassination of Pannun, reportedly involving RAW.
Mossad, Israel’s external intelligence agency, is known more for eliminating perceived threats than for intelligence gathering. Their targets have included several Iranian nuclear scientists such as Darioush Rezaeil Najad, Majid Shahriyari, and Masood Ali Mohammed.
These victims were typically Physics professors with nuclear weapons expertise, whom Israel considered threats. Mossad allegedly used hired operatives to eliminate these targets within Iran and elsewhere.
Diplomatic Tensions
India and Canada have escalated their diplomatic crisis by expelling their top envoys in a tit-for-tat reaction following Canada’s accusations against Indian High Commissioner Sanjeev Verma, accusing him of presiding over the illegitimate intelligence gathering and for his involvement in the killing of Nijjar.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cited “credible evidence” from the RCMP, which reported “over a dozen credible and imminent threats” to pro-Khalistan supporters. India rejected these allegations as “preposterous” and asked six Canadian diplomats, including acting High Commissioner Stewart Wheeler, to leave by October 19. The dispute has led to deteriorating relations, with India also suspending visa services and withdrawing its diplomats.
The United States and Canada, along with the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, are part of the globally powerful intelligence alliance ‘Five Eyes’, whose foundations were laid at the inception of the Cold War, enabling the Western powers to strengthen their surveillance network as the spy wars began to replace the wars fought on the battlefield.
Previous Precedents
This is not the first time India has been involved in the war of expelling diplomats of one of the powerful members of the ‘Five Eyes’. During the Cold War era, India and the USA regularly expelled each other’s diplomats suspected of espionage, reflecting their strained relationship as India was perceived as a Soviet ally. However, even as relations improved, diplomatic incidents continued.
In 1997, a significant case emerged when senior Intelligence Bureau official Rattan Saigal had unauthorized meetings with CIA station chief Timothy Long and his deputy Susan Brown in New Delhi. These undisclosed meetings violated diplomatic protocols requiring prior notification. Both CIA officers were subsequently declared persona non grata and expelled from India. In retaliation, the US expelled two RAW officers stationed in San Francisco and Chicago.
Another notable incident occurred in 1996 when RAW officer Devendra Singh became embroiled in a US election fraud scandal. Singh used Baltimore lawyer Lalit Gadhia to channel $46,000 to Indian-Americans for making illegal political contributions to Congressional candidates in the 1994 elections. Gadhia’s guilty plea exposed both the RAW officer’s cover and violated US election laws prohibiting foreign contributions.
However, in the last two decades, India and the US have inched closer and no Cold War is lurking.
History of RAW Operations
India’s intelligence agencies have had mixed success in their operations throughout history. While they failed to anticipate major events like Bangladesh President Mujibur Rahman’s assassination (1975) and the Taliban’s Afghanistan takeover (2021), they also achieved significant successes under RAW’s founding director R N Kao.
Notable operations included creating the Mukti Bahini during Bangladesh’s liberation, locating Pakistan’s nuclear facility in Kahuta, maintaining influence with Afghan warlords, training the LTTE, executing Operation Cactus in Maldives, and influencing political outcomes in Fiji.
Former IB Joint Director Maloy Krishna Dhar revealed in “Open Secrets” that while posted abroad in the 1980s, he gathered crucial intelligence about potential Khalistani terrorist attacks from Gurudwaras and Sikh communities. However, this intelligence wasn’t properly analyzed, potentially missing an opportunity to prevent the Kanishka bombing.
Traditionally, India’s external intelligence agency (RAW) focused on information gathering and subversion, unlike agencies such as Mossad, CIA, KGB, or ISI, which were known for targeted eliminations. This approach appears to be changing in recent times.
RAW traditionally focused on intelligence gathering rather than assassinations, with notable successes including the 1971 Bangladesh liberation and tracking Pakistan’s Kahuta nuclear facility.
Intriguing Operations
An intriguing early operation was the 1971 Indian Airlines hijacking, allegedly orchestrated by Hashim Qureshi to disrupt Pakistan’s air routes between its eastern and western wings before the Bangladesh war. Qureshi, who was a Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front member is purported to have been deputed by the RAW.
Several other controversial operations also highlight RAW’s evolution.
The 2011 case of NSG commando Lucky Bist, who allegedly eliminated gangsters Raju Paragai and Amit Arya along the Nepal border, was detailed in Hussain Zaidi’s “The RAW Hitman.” The mysterious 1998 killing of Dawood’s aide Mirza Dilshad Baig in Nepal, reportedly by Chhota Rajan’s associate Farid Tanasha, suggested RAW’s possible use of criminal networks for strategic objectives.
More recent operations show increasing sophistication. The 2004 Chittagong arms haul disruption in Bangladesh led to the arrest of several BNP ministers and intelligence officials.
In 2022, RAW conducted complex operations to rescue Indians trapped in Zhao Wei’s casino operations in the Golden Triangle.
The agency also allegedly installed an internet sniffer on Mauritius’s submarine cables maintained by Huawei, though this operation reportedly had the Prime Minister’s approval.
In Kashmir, RAW and IB adopted MI6’s Northern Ireland tactics, infiltrating militant groups like HuM and LeT. The agency’s public profile increased following the Uri surgical strikes (2016) and Balakot air strikes (2019), marking a shift from its traditionally covert nature.
However, recent international scrutiny, including the Kulbhushan Jadhav case in Pakistan and allegations regarding operations in Canada, suggests growing challenges in balancing traditional intelligence work with more direct interventions.
Embarrassment & Questions
The US indictment and Canada’s charges put India in the spotlight and hurt its international image.
As India begins its firefight against this embarrassment, serious questions are being evaded. Fresh reports reveal that Vikas Yadav was arrested in Tihar in December 2023, after the US’s first indictment and the initial allegations in both the Pannun plot and Nijjar murder. He received bail three months later and his whereabouts have been unknown since then.
How could the government not know about his whereabouts even if we were to believe that Yadav was no longer part of the RAW or CRPF? Can ex-officials who were earlier deputed on crucial and sensitive duties disappear in thin air? Much worse, he was arrested in a case and released on bail. That too, after his name had figured in the controversy and India had been put on notice.
The US court has charged him with “murder-to-hire” and “money laundering”. If the charges are to be believed, huge amounts of money were transacted for the plot. Where did Yadav get the money from? Is Yadav just a perpetrator or also a scapegoat?
Only a fair investigation by the Indian government can reveal some answers. The case highlights a lack of accountability within the country and raises deeper questions that impact not only the country’s image but also weaken the legal justice system.
Collaboration Is The Way Forward
If the RAW is allowed to follow the Mossad playbook, it will damage the country’s interests even more. India’s increasing alignment with Israeli security methods is already concerning, particularly given Israel’s controversial military response to Hamas and domestic opposition to Netanyahu’s policies.
RAW’s shift toward direct action operations requires immediate review by the Indian Prime Minister and Cabinet Secretariat. The agency should refocus on its core competency of intelligence gathering rather than executing operations independently. Collaboration with host countries using evidence-based approaches is preferable to unilateral mercenary actions, which risk damaging India’s reputation and international relationships.
*Shome Basu is a New Delhi-based journalist specializing in conflict and politics. He is also the author of Shades of Kashmir, which explores the region’s insurgency years.
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