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Rajnath Singh reacts to Guardian report claiming India carrying out assassinations in Pakistan: ‘If any terrorist...’
Rajnath Singh reacted to the Guardian's report claiming India ordered killings of at least 20 terrorists inside Pakistan since 2020.
Defence minister Rajnath Singh on Friday said no Pakistani terrorist trying to disturb India from across the border will be spared. He was reacting to a report by the Guardian that the Indian government ordered at least 20 assassinations on Pakistan soil since 2020.
"If any terrorist tries to disturb India from Pakistan, we will give muh tod jawab (befitting reply). If needed, Pakistan mein ghus ke marenge (Will enter Pakistan and kill). If someone will try to disturb India with terror, uski khair nahi hai (he will not be spared)," the defence minister said in an interview to News18.
On PM Modi's old ‘Ghar me ghus ke maarenge’ statement, Rajnath Singh said, "Whatever PM Modi had said is correct as India has that power and now Pakistan also realises this.”
"India has always wanted to have a good relationship with the neighbouring countries. India has never attacked any country, it has neither occupied an inch of any other country's land. But those who target India repeatedly, enter India and spread terrorism will not be spared," Rajnath Singh said.
The Guardian report published on Thursday claimed since the Pulwama attack in 2019, India's intelligence agency RAW carried out assassinations inside Pakistan. The report said these deaths were "orchestrated by Indian intelligence sleeper cells mostly operating out of the United Arab Emirates". The Guardian report quoted unnamed intelligence sources and said India drew "inspiration from Israel's Mossad and Russia's KGB".
The Guardian reached out to the external affairs ministry for its comment on the findings of their investigation. The MEA denied all the allegations, reiterating an earlier statement that they were "false and malicious anti-India propaganda".
The report cited the killing of Zahid Akhund, Shahid Latif, Bashir Ahmad Peer, Saleem Rehmani -- all known terrorists. It said Pakistani authorities have been reluctant to publicly acknowledge the killings as these targets were known terrorists.
The report also detailed how the 'killings' were done. "According to the evidence gathered by Pakistan, the killings were regularly coordinated out of the UAE, where Raw established sleeper cells that would separately arrange different parts of the operation and recruit the killers," the report said.
Millions of rupees would often be paid to criminals to carry out these murders and the payments were mostly done via Dubai, it said. The RAW handlers overseeing these killings met in Nepal, the Maldives and Mauritius.
