Following a Guardian news report on the alleged killings, India's defense minister conceded that the government committed illegal killings in Pakistan.
According to intelligence officials from India and Pakistan who spoke with the Guardian, India's foreign intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (Raw), has been involved in up to 20 killings of individuals in Pakistan since 2020.
In response to a news story reported by Guardian, a London-based publication, Pakistan’s Foreign Office stated on Friday that India's network of extrajudicial and extraterritorial killings was now a "global phenomenon" and warned that India's assassination of Pakistanis on Pakistani soil was a clear violation of the country's sovereignty and a violation of the UN Charter.
It is pertinent to mention here that the Indian intelligence agents also accepted that Sikh activists residing in western countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, who were ardent supporters of the separatist Khalistan movement, had become a target of Raw's global activities after 2020.
Washington and Ottawa have officially accused India of being involved in the assassination of Khalistani Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada, as well as a botched assassination attempt on another Sikh, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, in the United States last year. According to sources, an internal inquiry blamed Pannun's botched assassination attempt on a "rogue agent," and India denied participation in Nijjar's death.
While giving an interview to Indian media on Friday, Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said, "If any terrorist from a neighboring nation attempts to disrupt India or carry out terrorist actions here, he would receive an appropriate response. If he flees to Pakistan, we will go there and kill him."
Meanwhile, India’s Foreign Minister S Jaishankar has denied allegations of an international media report that India carried out targeted assassinations in Pakistan, terming them "false and malicious propaganda".
“The allegations are "false and malicious anti-India propaganda," he claimed.