India’s external intelligence agency allegedly executed a methodical assassination programme to kill about half a dozen individuals in Pakistan from 2021 onwards, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

Six such killings, allegedly planned by the Research and Analysis Wing, were said to bear similarities to alleged operations to assassinate Khalistan separatists in the United States and Canada.

The killings in Pakistan were carried out not by Indian citizens but by Pakistani petty criminals or hired shooters from Afghanistan, the newspaper quoted unidentified officials as saying. The Research and Analysis Wing allegedly hired Dubai-based businessmen as intermediaries, and put in separate teams to carry out surveillance, organise killings and arrange for payments through hawala, or informal transnational financial networks.

One such alleged killing in 2022 was that of Zahoor Mistry, who was said to have murdered an Indian passenger during the hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight in 1999. Unidentified Pakistani officials told The Washington Post that a woman who called herself Tanaz Ansari, but was in fact said to be an Indian intelligence official, was involved in the operation to kill Mistry.

The woman allegedly hired two Pakistanis to track Mistry, two Afghan citizens to shoot him and three others from South East Asia, Africa and West Asia to send at least $5,500, or nearly Rs 4.7 lakh, to those involved in the killing.

The woman believed to be an Indian agent was also allegedly involved in killing Syed Khalid Raza, a militant leader who had been active in Kashmir in the 1990s, The Washington Post reported, citing unidentified Pakistani officials.

In October 2023, Shahid Latif, the alleged mastermind of the 2016 Pathankot attack, was shot in the Pakistani district of Sialkot, with reports at the time saying that the killing was carried out by unknown assailants.

On Tuesday, The Washington Post alleged that a group of men led by a labourer named Muhammad Umair had shot Latif. Umair was later arrested, and was said to have admitted that he had been sent from Dubai to personally kill Latif after previous such attempts failed.

Umair also allegedly disclosed the location of a safehouse in Dubai, the newspaper reported. Pakistani agents later allegedly broke into the safehouse, where they found intelligence but did not find two Indians who were said to be the tenants – Ashok Kumar Anand Salian and Yogesh Kumar.

India’s foreign ministry declined to give a response to The Washington Post on the allegations. In the past, Indian authorities have neither confirmed nor denied their role in specific assassinations, but stated that such killings were not part of official policy.

Previous claims against RAW on Khalistan separatist leaders

The allegations on Tuesday came eight months after the Research and Analysis Wing was also accused of being involved in an alleged plot to assassinate Khalistan separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun and in the killing of another Khalistan separatist leader named Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

The Washington Post had on April 29 claimed that a Research and Analysis Wing officer named Vikram Yadav was involved in both plots.

In October, Yadav was charged with murder-for-hire and money laundering by the United States Department of Justice in connection with the alleged plot to assassinate Pannun. The plot was foiled before Pannun, who holds dual citizenship in the United States and Canada, could be killed.

The allegations about Nijjar’s death led to strained diplomatic ties between India and Canada.

In September 2023, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also said that his country’s intelligence agencies were actively pursuing “credible allegations” tying agents of the Indian government to the killing of Nijjar in Surrey, near Vancouver.

Nijjar was a supporter of Khalistan, an independent nation for Sikhs that some members of the community seek to carve out of India. He was the head of the Khalistan Tiger Force, which is designated a terrorist outfit in India.

At the time, New Delhi rejected the allegations as “absurd and motivated” and said that they were an attempt by Ottawa to divert attention from the fact that it was providing shelter to individuals who posed a threat to India’s sovereignty.