Kulbhushan Yadav: Can Pakistan's ISPR Match India's Spin Machine?

[Riaz Haq]

The recent release of a 6-minute video confession of Indian intelligence officer arrested by Pakistan has been met by a furious disinformation campaign by the Indian government and Indian media. Their aim is to obfuscate the damning confession and discredit ISPR's fact-based claims. What ISPR and Pakistan government need to understand is that having facts on your side is not sufficient to make your case; it requires the use of all modern PR techniques to have any chance of success in influencing world opinion, particularly western opinion, in your favor.

So What Can Pakistan Do? 

 

I think the ISPR is in way over its head in this effort to persuade the world to believe Pakistan's case in the face of the well-honed Indian spin machine. Pakistan needs serious professionals for this job, the kind of professionals who have experience in orchestrating a campaign that includes news stories, TV analysts' commentaries, newspaper columns and magazine Op-Eds, think tank reports and speeches by the pro-Pakistan Caucus in the US Congress.

India's Spin Machine:

The Indian spin machine was recently in full gear when it tried unsuccessfully to stop the sale by the United States government of just 8 F-16s to Pakistan. The campaign orchestrated by the Indian government included placement of favorable news stories, TV analysts' commentaries, newspaper columns and magazine Op-Eds (including one by Husain Haqqani), think tank reports and speeches by the members of the India Caucus in the US Congress.  They all blatantly toed the Indian line that these 8 F-16s would be used against India, not in Pakistan's ongoing counter-insurgency operations. The biased nature of all of these efforts can be gauged by the following facts that were completely ignored by them:

1. There is a huge imbalance in the conventional defense capabilities between India and Pakistan as laid out by GlobalFirePower.com. It ranks India at number 4 in the world while Pakistan is way down at number 17 in 2016.

2. India is world's largest importer of sophisticated weapons, including fighter aircraft, according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Here's what it says about the import of weapons between 2011 and 2015: India (14 per cent of global arms imports), China (4.7 per cent), Australia (3.6 per cent), Pakistan (3.3 per cent), Viet Nam (2.9 per cent) and South Korea (2.6 per cent).

3. Pakistan, like the United States elsewhere, has been using F-16s in Operation Zarb e Azb against militants hiding out in Pakistan tribal belt along the border with Afghanistan.

I did not see a single piece in the US media supporting Pakistani position in this battle.  It was completely one-sided. They succeeded in forcing a US Senate vote to block the sale. Luckily for Pakistan, Obama administration barely succeeded in overcoming this Indian campaign to do something as trivial as selling just a few F-16s to Pakistan this time.

Kulbushan Yadav Arrest:

The facts about India's sponsorship of terror in Pakistan clearly favor ISPR.  The confession video shows a very relaxed Kulbhushan talking to the interrogators and revealing details of his work. He appears to be under no stress. However, I do not think that facts alone can help. Why?

The Obama administration and the western governments and analysts already know what India has been doing to hurt Pakistan.   Ex US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has confirmed based on US intelligence reports that "India has always used Afghanistan as a second front against Pakistan. India has over the years been financing problems in Pakistan".   

Back in 2009, after visiting Indian consulates in Zahedan, Jalalabad and Kandahar,  the pro-Indian analyst Christine Fair acknowledged that "they are not issuing visas as the main activity!" She futher said: "Moreover, India has run operations from its mission in Mazar (through which it supported the Northern Alliance) and is likely doing so from the other consulates it has reopened in Jalalabad and Qandahar along the border. Indian officials have told me privately that they are pumping money into Baluchistan". 

 

Kulbhushan Yadav's arrest is further confirmation of the fact that India is using development projects such as Chahbahar Port Project in Iran and various infrastructure projects in Afghanistan as cover for Indian intelligence agencies to sponsor terror in Pakistan. 

Successful PR Campaign:

Pakistan needs to learn from prior successful PR campaigns used by other countries. For example,  Pakistani government needs to look at the Kuwaiti government funded effort that involved as many as 20 PR, law and lobby firms in its campaign to mobilize US opinion to use force against Saddam Hussein in the 1991 Gulf War. Hill & Knowlton, then the world's largest PR firm, served as the mastermind for the Kuwaiti campaign. Its activities alone would have constituted the largest foreign-funded campaign ever aimed at manipulating American public opinion at the time.

Summary:

Pakistan can take heart from the fact that India's spin machine does not always succeed. However, it still needs to employ modern PR techniques to match India's to make the case that it is a victim of terror sponsored, at least in part, by India's intelligence agency.  The end goal needs to be to show the world that there is a proxy war being waged in Pakistan. This war needs to end to begin serious diplomacy to bring peace to South Asia.

Let me quote US analyst Stephen Cohen to conclude this: "The alphabet agencies—ISI, RAW, and so forth—are often the chosen instrument of state policy when there is a conventional (and now a nuclear) balance of power, and the diplomatic route seems barren."

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Pakistan Releases Confessional Video of India Agent 

Has Modi Stepped Up India's Covert War in Pakistan?

Ex India Spy Documents Successful RAW Ops in Pakistan

London Police Document Confirms MQM-RAW Connection Testimony

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor

Ajit Doval Lecture on "How to Tackle Pakistan" 

[Riaz Haq]

How did #Pakistan arrest #India #RAW agent Jadhav? They heard him speak #Marathi - Mumbai Mirror. http://www.mumbaimirror.com/mumbai/cover-story/How-did-Pak-arrest-J... …

Jadhav, who last visited Mumbai some four months back, was under watch by the Pakistani agencies during his movements in Iranian cities in the course of his work, his close friends from Mumbai police told this newspaper. Jadhav could have been honey-trapped before his arrest and then subjected to ruthless methods of interrogation and torture to extract information from him over a period of several weeks, they feel. The family had lost contact with Jadhav since February leading to the suspicion that he was in the custody of Pakistan for a while now. 

As a result, two other local contacts who were supposed to provide back-up assistance to Jadhav are also reportedly missing for over a month. The standard operating procedure is to always have some 'contacts' on standby to be the contact persons in times of emergency or when there is total blackout of communications and inaccessibility of the person of interest. Both the Indian contacts are inaccessible and have probably gone underground or are on the run - unless they have already been arrested and thrown behind bars -- disclosed officers from the Mumbai police. 

The fallout of the Jadhav's arrest is the frantic counterwinding operations launched by the Indian agencies in India as also in Pakistan. According to experts, the operations which are connected to an operative have to be immediately erased or folded up soon after he is outed so that there is always a plausible deniability. 

Shirish Thorat, New York-based security expert and former Indian police officer said, "In the event of an asset getting arrested the handlers immediately secure other related assets like Agents in Places (AIP) or regroup their operations and fold up all the ongoing or future tasks. This discontinuation of operations is far monumental a disaster than the arrest of an operative." In Jadhav's case too, the agencies have launched an expeditious exercise to retrace his footsteps and shut down all of his possible ongoing operations. The first step is to disown Jadhav as their operative and also ask the family to disassociate with him. Jadhav's family wanted to approach the top echelons of the government, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah, to exert pressure on Pakistan to release him. 

When asked whether the ministry of external affairs has officially informed the Mumbai police so that the Jadhav family can be intimated about his arrest in Pakistan, Deven Bharti, joint commissioner of police (law and order), replied in negative.

[Riaz Haq]

#India failed to provide evidence to #Pakistan JIT for #PathankotAttack http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/national/02-Apr-2016/india-failed-to-p... …

Indian authorities failed to provide evidence to Pakistan’s Joint Investigation Team (JIT), visiting India to probe into Pathankot Airbase attack.

The JIT members visited Pathankot Airbase on March 29 where Indian National Investigation Agency (NIA) officials briefed and showed them the route from where the attackers stormed the airbase.

Sources said the lights along the 24-km perimeter wall of the Pathankot airbase found to be faulty on the eve of the attack. The Pakistani investigators were allowed to enter the military airbase from the narrow adjacent routes instead of main entrance and their duration of the visit was just 55 minutes, enough to take a mere walk through the airbase, sources said and added that the JIT could not collect evidence in this limited time.

However, the team was only informed about the negligence of Boarder Security Force (BSF) and Indian forces, sources added. It was said that at the time of the attack the BSF was sleeping even though they had been alerted of a possible attack 48 hours earlier, sources said.

[Riaz Haq]

Business Recorder Editorial:

Only a senior, seasoned spy would so openly and copiously confess his espionage peccadilloes' as Kulbushan Yadav has done. Caught red handed, and realising his game is over for good, the best option with him was to tell the whole truth and win sympathies of his captors - and Yadav did just that. "My name is Commander Kulbushan Yadav and I am serving officer of Indian navy ... I was basically the man for Mr Anil Kumar Gupta who is the joint secretary of RAW and his contacts in Pakistan, especially in Balochistan Student Organisation". He couldn't be more candid. India has neither denied his existence nor his link with its navy; its only denial is, that as of now, Yadav is no more a serving officer. India was expected to dispute all what he has revealed, as any government would do, much less a country that is widely known for its interference in the internal affairs of its neighbours. And not that India's interference in Balochistan as revealed by Kulbushan Yadav is a rare breakthrough; India is involved in it for a long time now. The then prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, had conveyed Pakistan's concern over this to his then counterpart Dr Manmohan Singh at the 15th summit of Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Sharm el-Sheikh; the latter had agreed to 'look into it'. And a few weeks earlier, Pakistan presented a complete dossier containing instances of India's spying adventures to stir up trouble in Balochistan to the United Nations. There is however one big departure from the previous times; now a serving officer of Indian armed forces has been caught red handed, an instance that tends to directly establish beyond any doubt, that India's intelligence agency, RAW, is engaged in fomenting state-sponsored terrorism in Balochistan, Karachi and some other parts of Pakistan. Pakistan would therefore be within its right to apprise the United Nations of India's nefarious designs and take into confidence its allies and neighbours on this. Since Yadav was using his presence in Iranian seaport Chahbahar as base for his subversive work in Pakistan, the Army Chief General Raheel Sharif thought it proper to inform visiting President Hassan Rouhani that his country's soil was being misused by the RAW, but certainly not that it had the blessings of his government. 

India's obstructive mindset to disrupt the Pak-China co-operative relationship is not new nor does it seem to be relenting. Its latest target therefore is the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, particularly the China-assisted development of the Gwadar seaport. Kulbushan Yadav's latest errand was to help RAW recruit 30 to 40 local people and attack the main hotel in Gwadar where Chinese engineers stay. He was also to exchange messages between the Baloch separatists and RAW. But before Yadav could undertake this errand, he was apprehended at the Sarawan checkpost as he crossed over from Iran. And now as Kulbushan Yadav sings like a canary, it comes to light how deeply involved New Delhi is in destabilising Pakistan. Since his first visits to Pakistan in 2003 and 2004 Yadav has been "directing various activities in Karachi and Balochistan at the behest of RAW". The government would do well by exposing India's sinister agenda against Pakistan. At a joint presser with Information Minister Pervez Rashid on Tuesday last, the ISPR chief, Lieutenant General Asim Bajwa, expressed determination that government will take the case of the RAW agent to its logical conclusion, using both international and regional forums. While we always knew how deeply India is involved in fomenting trouble and destabilising Pakistan, but the world outside remained indifferent and unmoved. Here is now irrefutable evidence of that sinister involvement, for the world to see and act in the larger interest of regional stability and peace between two nuclear rivals. 

http://www.brecorder.com/editorials/0/32071/

[Riaz Haq]

Not just #India investing in #Chahbahar, #Iran Navy collaborates with Indian Navy. Worry for #Pakistan? https://youtu.be/2URWBlxc1zQ  via @YouTube

[Riaz Haq]

#Modi's #India’s #Pakistan strategy: Neutralize, Demonize, Terrorize, Destabilize, Isolate #Pakistan http://www.dawn.com/news/1249653 

INDIA’S ambitions of achieving Great Power status cannot be fully realised unless Pakistan is strategically neutralised. A conventional military defeat of Pakistan has been a costly and unlikely option ever since the latter acquired a credible nuclear deterrence capability. Pakistan has also built a strategic relationship with China which provides it with the capacity to balance, to a considerable extent, India’s larger military and economic capabilities.

India’s need to bring Pakistan to heel has intensified in the context of the emerging Great Power contest in Asia. Pakistan’s incorporation into an Indian sphere of influence would be a grave setback to China’s future role in South, West and Central Asia and the western Indian Ocean. The prospect of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, while India has no land access to the west and Central Asia, has added a new dimension to India’s determination to neutralise Pakistan. India’s strategic goals, if not its methods, are fully supported by the US and its allies.

India has adopted a complex strategy to wear down Pakistan’s resistance. This strategy encompasses: military and political pressure; subversion; terrorism; diplomatic isolation; media and public defamation and cultural domination.

[Riaz Haq]

#defense spending 2015: #India ($51.1b) ahead of #France ($50.9b), #Germany ($47b), #Japan ($46b). #Pakistan ($9b) http://ecoti.in/n8hYSa 

India's share was 3.1 per cent, ahead of France (3 per cent), Japan (2.4 per cent) and Israel (1 per cent). Incidentally, India is in talks with all three countries for acquiring new military platforms running into billions of dollars.

"The headline estimate for total world military spending for 2015 amounts to $1.676 billion, or about 2.3 per cent of total world gross domestic product ( GDP)-- often referred to as the 'military burden'. It is a sum that many people would consider to be .. 

Read more at:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/51701136.cms?utm_so...

[Riaz Haq]

#Pakistan says it has arrested #Afghan intelligence agent in #Balochistan province. #NDS #RAW http://reut.rs/1XhhuE9 via @Reuters

Pakistan on Wednesday arrested a suspected Afghan spy believed to be behind assassinations and bombings in its Baluchistan province, security and government officials told Reuters.

The move comes two weeks after Pakistan detained another man it said was an Indian spy who illegally entered the country and was also captured in the mineral rich province.

"The arrested man is an Afghan national living in a rented house in Boghara area at the outskirts of Chaman town. Paramilitary forces raided the house on intelligence and detained him," Manzoor Ahmed spokesman for the paramilitary force said.

"He was working for Afghan spy agency National Directorate of Security (NDS)," Ahmed said. Initial interrogation pointed to an NDS role in killings and blasts in the Baluchistan cities of Chaman and Quetta.

The accused has not been identified and Afghan authorities did not immediately comment on the arrest.

Quetta, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan on Wednesday arrested a suspected Afghan spy believed to be behind assassinations and bombings in its Baluchistan province, security and government officials told Reuters.

The move comes two weeks after Pakistan detained another man it said was an Indian spy who illegally entered the country and was also captured in the mineral rich province.

"The arrested man is an Afghan national living in a rented house in Boghara area at the outskirts of Chaman town. Paramilitary forces raided the house on intelligence and detained him," Manzoor Ahmed spokesman for the paramilitary force said.

"He was working for Afghan spy agency National Directorate of Security (NDS)," Ahmed said. Initial interrogation pointed to an NDS role in killings and blasts in the Baluchistan cities of Chaman and Quetta.

The accused has not been identified and Afghan authorities did not immediately comment on the arrest.

"He was on the payroll of NDS," said Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar, spokesman for the Baluchistan government.

Security forces also said they had seized a large arms and ammunition cache due to information gleaned from the Afghan.

Pakistan has uneasy relations with neighbor Afghanistan. Kabul has long accused Pakistan of sheltering the Afghan Taliban insurgency's leadership, a charge Islamabad denies.

For its part, Pakistan has demanded that Kabul do more to capture leaders of the separate Pakistani Taliban. They are believed to have sought refuge on Afghan soil after being dislodged in a Pakistani military operation from North Waziristan along the border.

Pakistan last month said it had detained a spy from regional arch rival India in Baluchistan who had illegally entered from Iran. It later released a videotaped confession by the man.

India has confirmed that the man was a former Indian navy official but denied he was a spy.

[Riaz Haq]

#Pakistan wants air force upgrade for prolonged #militant fight. #terrorism #Taliban http://reut.rs/25MO2M3 via @Reuters

Pakistan wants to upgrade its aging fleet of fighter jets in anticipation of a prolonged battle against Islamist militants, although the purchase of fifth-generation planes would only be a last resort, a senior air force official said.

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In 2014, the military launched a crackdown in the northwestern areas of North and South Waziristan and has managed to push back militants into a few pockets.

But its air force, which will need to retire dozens of jets over the coming years, lacks the latest technology and relies heavily on a fleet of about 70 U.S.-made Lockheed Martin F-16s, which are solely capable of carrying out precision targeting.

"Our concern is that we don't know how long these anti-terrorist operations will continue," Pakistan Air Force second-in-command Muhammad Ashfaque Arain told Reuters in an interview late on Wednesday.

"We have weakened them (militants) to a great extent, but I don't see an end in the very near future, so all the burden is being shared by the F-16s and its pilots."

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Pakistan's fleet also includes hundreds of Dassault Aviation French-made Mirage jets that are over 40 years old and F7 Chinese warplanes that are over 25 years old, both of which the air force plans to retire over the next few years.

To fill the void, Islamabad has decided to bet on the JF-17 fighter, jointly developed by China and Pakistan, rather than spending billions on fifth-generation multi-role aircraft like Dassault's Rafale, which rival India is buying, or the Russian Su-35.

That option, Arain said, had almost been ruled out for being too expensive and because Pakistan did not want to mix technologies and resources. It would only be reconsidered if "it was pushed against a wall".

Instead, 16 JF-17s will be produced this year with a further 20 in 2017, but Arain acknowledged that the jets' usefulness in current operations was limited because it lacks precision targeting.

"Operationally, the aircraft are working pretty well so we if we had a targeting pod on the JF-17, the burden would be shared," Arain said.

He said his visit to Paris was in part aimed at assessing from French officials the prospects of supplying the Thales-made Damocles, a third-generation targeting pod. He said that was Islamabad's priority for now.

Previous negotiations in 2010 for a deal worth 1.2 billion euros ($1.6 billion) worth of electronics and missiles collapsed under pressure from India, uncertainty over Pakistan's finances and fears of the transfer of technology given Chinese involvement in the JF-17.

"We're looking at the best option. The Damocles is a battle- proven system and the other options are not," Arain said. "If we do not get the Damocles pod for example, then we will need to look for alternate options that may not be proven."

He said that in the long run, the air force was thinking about its needs beyond 2030 when F-16s and JF-17s would start to be replaced.

The United States in February approved the sale to Pakistan of up to eight F-16 fighter jets for the short term, but Arain said even that was proving complicated.

"It's a much cheaper fighter jet, but buying more F-16s is economically not feasible for us and then there is a lot of human outcry," he said.

Arain countered any suggestion that Pakistan might want greater air power to target India by saying that New Delhi itself was expanding its fleet.

"We get eight aircraft and there are people who start to say that it will tilt the balance of power in South Asia. But when somebody across the border buys 36 aircraft and has plans to buy 126, that doesn't change the balance of power," he said, referring to India.

[Riaz Haq]

#UK ex-diplomat in #Karachi #Pakistan says #MQM leader #AltafHusain acknowledged working for #India's #RAW http://www.thenews.com.pk/print/111645-UK-ex-diplomat-says-Altaf-ac... …

Britain’s former deputy head of Mission in Karachi Shaharyar Khan Niazi has claimed that the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s leader Altaf Hussain voluntarily told the British government that he worked for the Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

Shaharyar Khan Niazi worked for the British High Commission in Karachi for over a decade but importantly he remained at the heart of the policymaking as far Britain’s dealing with the MQM was concerned during the most crucial period – from 2010 until 2013 – after he was promoted to the position of Deputy Head of Mission.

In his first ever exclusive interview for ‘Geo News’ with this correspondent after quitting his post in the middle of 2013, Shahryar Khan Niazi revealed that Altaf Hussain confessed to his involvement with RAW during a high-profile diplomatic meeting in late 2011/early 2012. Niazi claimed that the British government and Scotland Yard had evidence that a written agreement existed between the MQM and the Indian premier spy agency RAW.

The former UK diplomat is privy to crucial information and was witness – as well as a part of it being in his important position - to the sensitive and important communications went on between the UK authorities and the MQM. According to Shahryar Khan Niazi, there is evidence linking Altaf Hussain with the Indian government.

“The Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) is well aware of the fact that Altaf Hussain has links with RAW.”

When asked what the evidence was that the UK had on Altaf Hussain's links to RAW, the former deputy head of mission told Geo News: “There is a lot of evidence but let me share with you the most important one. Firstly, a member of Her Majesty’s diplomatic service officially called on Altaf Hussain around 2011/12 and during that meeting Altaf Hussain voluntarily confessed and accepted that he worked for RAW. Secondly, there is evidence that Altaf Hussain’s team facilitated contacts between the RAW and Baloch insurgents. Hussain’s team helped bring the two together. Thirdly, there are financial trail of links with the RAW; and fourthly, confessional statements about these links exist and one of these has been leaked already, there are on-the-record interviews and confessions. What has come out in the public domain so far is only a tip of the iceberg.”

The former deputy head of mission made the most damning revelation that Altaf Hussain and his team had a documented agreement with RAW and the police had evidence of that. “Altaf Hussain and his team have a Service Delivery Agreement with RAW. Basically, an agreement as to what Altaf Hussain and his team will deliver for the RAW. There are communication exchanges, including emails. This evidence was found by Scotland Yard during the murder investigation of Dr Imran Farooq and the money-laundering investigation.”

The former top diplomat made startling revelation that the then interior minister of Pakistan under Pakistan People’s Party government Rehamn Malik was briefed by the British government that Altaf Hussain had links with RAW”.

Shaharyar Khan Niazi told Geo News: “Rehman Malik was briefed officially by the British government about Altaf's links to RAW a couple of times".

Shahryar Khan Niazi also said that "there was credible information to suggest that the Interior Minister (Rehman Malik) met Altaf Hussain and told him that he had spoken to the British Home Secretary (Theresa May) and that on his (Malik’s) intervention all the police investigations in relation to the MQM leader would be terminated and all charges would be dropped against Altaf Hussain.

The former deputy head of mission said that the British government confronted Rehamn Malik on this issue, based on information. “The interior minister was confronted by the UK government and asked not to make false statements or claims.”

[Riaz Haq]

#India journalist Thapar's tough questions re #KulbhushanJadhav: fake name #passport, #India's #Iran abduction claim

 

The mysterious Mr Jadhav

The case of the Indian sentenced in Pakistan offers more questions than answers

 

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/the-mysterious-kul...

 

First, why does Jadhav have two passports, one in his own name and another in the name of Hussein Mubarak Patel? According to The Indian Express, the second passport was originally issued in 2003 and renewed in 2014. The passport numbers are E6934766 and L9630722. When asked, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson would only say that India needs access to Jadhav before he could answer. But why not check the records attached to the passport numbers? Surely they would tell a story?

Additionally, The Times of India claims that since 2007, Jadhav has rented a Bombay flat owned by his mother, Avanti, in the name of Hussein Mubarak Patel. Why would he use an alias to rent his own mother’s flat?

Perhaps Jadhav changed his name after converting to Islam? But then, why did he deliberately retain a valid passport in his old name? Indeed, why did the government let him, unless he deceived them?

Second, the government claims Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran and forcibly brought to Balochistan. A former German ambassador to Pakistan, Gunter Mulack, at least initially suggested this was true — but has the government pursued the matter with Mulack?

If it has, that hasn’t been reported, nor has what he revealed.

However, we did pursue the matter with Iran, but, as the MEA spokesperson admitted, they don’t seem to have responded or, perhaps, even conducted an investigation yet. We seem to have accepted that.

Odd, wouldn’t you say?

If Pakistan did abduct Jadhav, don’t we need to ask why? Doesn’t that raise the question of what was so special about him that made them do this? After all, there are 4,000 Indians in Iran — and no one else has been abducted.

Third, both The Indian Express and Asian Age suggest that Jadhav has links with the Pakistani drug baron Uzair Baloch. Did he play dirty with him and get caught in a revenge trap set by the drug mafia? Given that Jadhav was arrested a month after Baloch, this could be part of the explanation.

Finally, The Indian Express has reported that between 2010 and 2012, Jadhav made three separate attempts to join the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW). The paper suggests he also tried to join the Technical Services Division. What more do we know about this? Even if the media doesn’t, surely the government does? A. S. Dulat, a distinguished former chief of R&AW, has unhesitatingly said Jadhav could be a spy. As he put it, if he was the government, he would hardly admit it.

Just a few days before Jadhav’s sudden conviction and death sentence, the Pakistani media claimed a retired Pakistani army officer, Lt. Col. Muhammad Habib Zahir, had gone missing in Lumbini, close to the Indian border. The Pakistani media is convinced he’s been trapped by R&AW. Was Jadhav convicted and sentenced to preempt India from claiming it had caught a Pakistani spy? And now, is an exchange of ‘spies’ possible?

I’m not sure who will answer these questions, and perhaps it would not be proper for the government to do so, but whilst they hang in the air, the mystery surrounding Jadhav will only grow.