The outreach that Pakistan has been making to its assets living abroad has caught the attention of the Indian agencies.
NEW DELHI — The outreach that Pakistan has been making to its assets living abroad has caught the attention of the Indian agencies.
Islamabad wants to scale up the propaganda war against India to such a large scale that it has been investing heavily in its foreign assets to further this agenda.
Over the next year, Pakistan would extensively focus on calling in the Sikh diaspora in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom to Pakistan. Further arrangements are also being made to call in members of its pressure groups abroad and hold a series of meetings on how to ramp up anti-India propaganda activity.
An Intelligence Bureau official said that Islamabad has been working on a route map on how to get these persons into Pakistan. These visits would not be discreet ones. In fact, the legal channels would be used to take these persons into Pakistan, and even the events and meetings that would be held would be heavily publicised. This would give such events validity, and there would be no questions asked by the International community, the official said.
The focus for now is in having members of the pressure groups who raise the Kashmir issue on the international stage.
Further, the Sikh diaspora too would be called in with the intention of discussing the Khalistan issue.
An official said that the fact that Pakistan has chosen to use the legal route to get these persons into the country only suggests that it wants the international community to grant validity to both the Khalistan and Kashmir issues.
During these events, fake issues of human rights violations would be raked up where both Kashmir and Punjab are concerned. The major push would be to publicise the cause and then push towards international mediation, the official said.
This development comes in the wake of Pakistan making a major push to win over the Sikh community. The focus is on the Sikh diaspora abroad since India has kept the Kartarpur Corridor suspended for cross-border pilgrims travelling from the Indian side. This has prompted the Pakistanis to reach out to the Sikh diaspora abroad who would have normally travelled from the Indian side had the route not been suspended.
Another official said that Islamabad is working on a strategy that would try to bring the Sikh diaspora as well as the so-called pro-Kashmiri activists through Dubai, Colombo, Kuala Lumpur, and Istanbul.
There are special immigration arrangements that are in place to bring these persons into Pakistan. Such privileges are often given to high-ranking members travelling to Pakistan.
Islamabad wants to emphasise that these persons who would help them in both the Khalistan and Kashmir cause are important guests who are on a state visit. This also means that the guests who would travel to Pakistan would avail smart-gate immigration facilities, special e-visas, and dedicated green channels.
Pakistan intends to run this programme all year long and would begin this drive by inviting the Sikh diaspora abroad. This is being done more to target the Sikhs in Punjab who would be voting in the Assembly elections in 2027. The idea of bringing the Sikh diaspora from abroad and facilitating their visits to highly revered shrines is meant to send a message to the Sikhs in India.
Islamabad hopes that the Sikhs in India would pressure the Indian government to relax restrictions and let them travel to Pakistan. The ISI hopes that India would give in to this pressure and then open up the route for the Sikhs in India so that some of them can be brainwashed into acting as assets for Pakistan once they return to Punjab.
While the immediate emphasis would be on the Khalistan issue owing to the fact that the elections are round the corner in Punjab, the ISI would soon begin focusing heavily on Kashmir as well.
Once these so-called Kashmiri activists are taken to Pakistan, the plan is to organise seminars and discourses. Pakistan would give wide publicity to such events with the hope that the Kashmir issue would be amplified on the global stage, an official said.