AJK police say suspected RAW agent arrested in Rawalakot

ISLAMABAD: Azad Jammu and Kashmir police said on Thursday that they had detained a man in Rawalakot on suspicion of working for India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) after allegedly being blackmailed into carrying out tasks for the agency.

AJK Inspector General of Police Liaqat Ali Malik said one suspect had been taken into custody and alleged that he had been coerced into working for RAW. According to Malik, the suspect’s handler used a Facebook account carrying a Lahore address and first assigned minor tasks before moving on to more sensitive activity.

The police chief said those tasks began with routine-looking assignments and later expanded to geotagging, sharing coordinates and making videos of what he described as sensitive locations. He said the sites included military installations, schools, bridges and other government buildings in AJK as well as other parts of Pakistan.

“This time, the AJK police worked with sensitive institutions to take pre-emptive action and exposed this whole network,” Malik said. He added that hostile elements had “trapped” innocent young people while causing damage to life and property.

Police describe alleged blackmail method

According to the police, the alleged blackmail process involves the use of a fake social media account to attract targets. After that, malicious applications are installed to record chats, intimate videos and pictures, which are then used to blackmail the person.

Police said the assignments initially remain limited in scope but gradually become more sensitive, eventually leading to the collection of information about military sites and civilian institutions that could be targeted.

Malik praised police personnel and other forces for their role in the operation and said the police would go to “any length” for “this holy land” and would foil the “enemy’s impure intentions”.

Related claims made previously

The development comes against the backdrop of earlier statements by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who has accused India of using proxies to revive terrorism in Pakistan after what he described as its humiliating defeat in last year’s military conflict. He had also said that peace in the region would remain out of reach unless New Delhi gave up its “aggressive, expansionist and hegemonic ambitions”.

In December last year, the Punjab Counter Terrorism Department said it had arrested 12 suspected militants allegedly linked to RAW during intelligence-based operations in Lahore, Faisalabad and Bahawalpur.

Earlier, in August, the CTD had also said it uncovered a RAW network that allegedly used Pakistanis and a separatist outfit in Sindh to carry out the targeted killing of a prominent social worker in Matli, in Badin district.

The latest arrest in Rawalakot was presented by AJK police as part of efforts carried out in coordination with sensitive institutions to disrupt what officials described as a wider network.