India plans to use detained Pakistanis in ‘fake encounters’: state media

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani security sources said on Monday that India has once again begun “fake encounters” under the guise of countering terrorism, with an alleged plan to “use” detained Pakistanis in them.

The statement came after the Indian Army’s Chinar Corps said they killed three alleged “terrorists” under ‘Operation Mahadev’ in occupied Kashmir’s Srinagar. While Indian media, citing sources, has been linking one of the dead to the Pahalgam attack, no official has stated that on record.

The April 22 attack in held Kashmir’s Pahalgam killed 26 people and sparked heavy fighting between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, as New Delhi blamed the attack on Islamabad, which strongly denied the allegations while calling for a neutral investigation.

India had launched Operation Sindoor in the wake of the Pahalgam attack, which included the deadly strikes launched on Pakistan on May 7.

“After the failure of Operation Sindoor, India has once again initiated fake encounters under the guise of Operation Mahadev,” security sources said on Monday.

Operation Mahadev has been “launched to conceal the setbacks of Operation Sindoor”, the security sources said, adding that the “Indian regime is allegedly preparing to use innocent Pakistanis, illegally and forcibly detained, in staged encounters, falsely portraying them as cross-border terrorists”.

India has seen fake encounters as far back as 2015. The National Human Rights Commission of India — a quasi-judicial body — identified 555 instances between 2008 and 2013, but activists say the actual count is even higher.

The objective of Operation Mahadev is to suppress the “growing freedom movement” in India-occupied Kashmir and to restore the “waning political credibility” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, the security sources added.

They said India was attempting to present Operation Mahadev as a “successful military initiative to erase the embarrassment of Operation Sindoor”.

The security sources highlighted that “immediately following the Pahalgam false flag operation, the Indian Army reportedly began a series of staged encounters”.

The sources further said that on April 24, two citizens of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Muhammad Farooq and Muhammad Deen, were “martyred in a brutal encounter by Indian forces after mistakenly crossing the border”.

Indian forces in occupied Kashmir arrested more than 2,000 Kashmiris and demolished several homes of pro-freedom Kashmiris in a sweeping crackdown following the Pahalgam incident.

The report, recalling the press briefings held on April 29 and April 30 by military spokesperson Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, read that he “revealed details of 723 Pakistani nationals illegally detained in various Indian jails”.

“Additionally, 56 Pakistanis are said to be held in secret custody by Indian intelligence agencies.”

The security sources noted: “As is customary, following these alleged fake encounters, videos and photographs of the deceased, alongside planted weapons, are circulated in Indian media to support the official narrative.

“Reliable reports suggest that these detainees may be coerced into making anti-Pakistan statements and confessions before the media,” they added.

“Operation Mahadev appears to be a continuation of the Indian Army’s long-standing practice of fake encounters in IIOJK (Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir), where it has gained notoriety as a ‘fake encounter specialist’,” the sources said.

“India, having faced humiliation in the Pahalgam false flag operation and the failure of Operation Sindoor, now seems completely disoriented,” the security sources added.