India militants under ISI pressure?
The Pakistan Army and its elite intelligence unit, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), is mounting pressure on Indian militants holed up in Pakistan to either step up their terror activities against India or leave their country. This startling revelation has been made by Abdul Karim Tunda, the key Lashkar-e-Tayyaba operative, who is being interrogated by multiple security agencies.
Highly-placed intelligence sources said that according to Tunda, there was a growing sense of frustration among the Pakistani intelligence establishment which feels that Indian militants living in Pakistan are being “underutilised’’ even though they are incurring huge expenditure for providing them a safe hideout.
India has handed over a list of 20 key terror operatives hiding in Pakistan that includes underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, Bhatkal brothers of Indian Mujahideen, Wadhawa Singh of Babbar Khalsa International and even Tunda himself, who was number 15 on the terror list.
Tunda claimed that ISI was of the view that Punjab terror outfits like the BKI were not carrying out enough subversive activities and want its top leadership to conduct more operations. Tunda has had close links with the BKI and even other Punjab terror organisations.
During his sustained interrogation, Tunda admitted that he himself left Pakistan following a clear directive from ISI to step up his activities. Thus, he made several trips to West Asia and Bangladesh to raise funds, smuggle fake Indian currency and train terror cadres in making of explosives. In fact, Tunda was caught during one such visit to a West Asian country.
Security experts feel that if Tunda’s revelations are any indication to go by, there could be a sharp increase in terror strikes across the country and all concerned agencies need to be sensitised accordingly.
“It seems the ISI wants the Indian militant leadership sitting in Pakistan to justify their existence. They are running huge expenses on proving safe hideouts and training of these militants. But it appears the ISI is running out of patience now, particularly with the Punjab terror outfits and are desperately trying to re-activate them. They want other groups like the Indian Mujahideen also to increase their activities,’’ a senior intelligence official said.
In addition, Tunda has also given vital details regarding ISI’s fake Indian currency smuggling racket, saying bulk of the FICN was coming through the porous Indo-Bangladesh border. He revealed that Malda was a major hub for smuggling of fake Indian currency and that ISI had established good network of sleeper cells in the region.
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