The Man In The Dhow

Pakistan claims arrest of a 'RAW agent' in Balochistan, buoying its propaganda that India is fomenting trouble

Pakistan struck a big propaganda blow against India in a crowded hour-long military civil press conference in Islamabad on March 29. There, officials released a ‘confession’ video of what they alleged was an Indian spy in their custody. In the six-minute video, Commander Kulbhushan Jadhav, 46, ‘confessed’ to launching covert operations against Pakistan’s Balochistan province from Chabahar port in Iran. Jadhav claimed he had been arrested inside Pakistan on March 2.

There was good reason why the press conference overshadowed a deadly Easter Sunday suicide bomb attack by the Pakistani Taliban at a public park in Lahore which killed 69 persons just two days earlier. This was going to be Pakistan’s riposte against decades of Indian public outrage at its neighbour’s state sponsorship of terror—recounted in graphic detail over the years by Ajmal Kasab, the sole surviving ‘26/11’ terrorist attacker, Naved, a terrorist caught alive in the 2015 attack on a BSF convoy in Jammu to the recent video testimony of 26/11 scout, David Coleman Headley.

Pakistan’s charges over the years of an Indian hand in fomenting insurrection in Balochistan and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas Indian footsoldiers and Indian-made weapons—have never stuck. But this time, they were brandishing ‘credible’ proof.

Indian officials, of course, swiftly rubbished the video. An MEA spokesperson said “the video has this individual making statements which have no basis in fact. That the individual claims to make the statements of his own free will not only challenges credulity but clearly indicates tutoring.”