The Punjab government on Tuesday announced that it has had a breakthrough in several “targeted killings” in the state since 2016. Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said that the murders were a conspiracy hatched by Pakistani agency Inter-Services Intelligence.

“Breakthrough in targeted killings with arrest of four, conspiracy was hatched by ISI on foreign soil to spread communal disturbances,” the chief minister said on Twitter. He was referring to the killings of Shiv Sena leader Durgadas Gupta, RSS leaders Jagdish Gagneja and Ravider Gosain, Sri Hindu Takht official Amit Sharma, Dera Sacha Sauda followers Satpal and Ramesh Kumar and pastor Sultan Masih.

Singh added that the culprits, who were trained abroad, had used encrypted mobile software and applications to communicate with their handlers in Pakistan and other western countries.

The chief minister said that the men who were arrested were Jammu resident Jimmy Singh, who recently returned to India from the United Kingdom, another man from United Kingdom named Jagtra Singh Johal and gangster from Ludhiana Dharmender alias Guggni, reported The Tribune. The fourth man was arrested only on Tuesday evening, and so they could not disclose details, he said.

With these arrests, a nexus between the ISI and the gangsters who provided the weapons has been well established, besides the “exploitation of innocent youth by radicalising them,” Punjab Director General of Police Suresh Arora was quoted as saying by ANI.