Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri  referred to intelligence cooperation between India and Pakistan  following the Samjhauta Express bomb blasts  in the context of  the “Joint Anti-Terror Mechanism making a “meaningful, contribution” in the fight against terror. He  said the intelligence agencies of the two countries could “work together and added “They will have to if South Asia is to live in a civilised  manner. He stated that if both the governments “put their weight behind” such an endeavour, it will work. After all, both countries have suffered... and asked, “Why shouldn’t it work.”

Apparently, Mr Kasuri is not aware that an exercise towards regular intelligence cooperation between Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence and India’s Research and Analysis Wing was initiated when the late  General  Zia-ul-Haq was the President of Pakistan and Rajiv Gandhi the Prime Minister of India. This exercise, which started well with promising results, flopped due to an act of perfidy by Lt Gen Hamid Gul, who was the Director-General of the ISI in the late 1980s, not only towards R&AW, but also towards Benazir Bhutto, the duly elected Prime Minister of Pakistan between 1988 and 1990.

The then Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan was good personal friend of Rajiv Gandhi and Zia. He contacted Zia and Rajiv Gandhi separately and suggested that the ISI and R&AW chiefs should meet secretly and discuss  these issues away from the glare of publicity instead of levelling open allegations against each other. He offered to arrange the first meeting at Amman. His offer was accepted and he arranged a meeting at Amman between Lt Gen Hamid GuI and A K Verma, who was the head of R&AW. He introduced the two to each other and then disappeared from the scene.

The two had two meetings —  the first at Amman and the second at Geneva. The atmosphere in the two meetings was positive. The agenda included not only the question of stopping the ISI support to the Khalistani terrorists and handing over the terrorists given shelter in Pakistan, but also ways of solving the Siachen issue. While there was progress in the discussions on the Siachen issue because the Pakistan Army was keen to have the Indian Army withdrawn from there. On the terrorism issue, Gul took up the standard position that the Sikh terrorists wanted by India were not in Pakistani territory.

However, through a carefully worked-out operation, he enabled the India to get the custody of four Sikh soldiers of the Indian army, who had deserted while they were posted in Jammu and Kashmir and sought sanctuary in Pakistan. He wanted the operation organised in such a manner that it would not appear that the ISI had handed over these deserters to R&AW. The R&AW agreed to this and kept its word to Gul that it would not tell the media about it.

When this exercise for an ISI-R&AW dialogue started Zia-ul-Haq was in power but he was killed in an aircraft crash in August 1988. Following elections a few weeks later, Benazir Bhutto became the Prime Minister after she accepted some conditions imposed by the Pakistan Army  among which, Lt Gen Gul would continue as the ISI chief. Prince Hassan and Gul kept her informed of the dialogue with R&AW. She agreed that it should continue.

Some months after Benazir took over, Gul, without consulting her, organised a raid on Najibullah’s Afghan Army post at Jalalabad with the help of Afghan Mujahideen which proved a failure. Benazir Bhutto replaced Gul as the DG-ISI with a retired Major General S R Kallue, who abolished the ISI’s political division headed by Brigadier Imtiaz which kept watch over political leaders. On Gul’s advice Nawaz Sharif, who was then chief minister of  Punjab, inducted Imtiaz into the Punjab Police Special Branch to continue assistance to the Khalistani movement.

Gul then leaked to Sharif and the media information about  four Sikh Army deserters who were handed over to India. He did not admit that he had done it but alleged that Benazir because of close ties with Rajiv Gandhi had done so despite his opposition. The Pakistan Muslim League headed by Sharif mounted a big campaign against her on this issue. Gul also told her detractors that Kallue on her orders had handed over to R&AW some ISI files on Khalistani leaders. Benazir asked DG-ISI Gen Kallue for files about the meeting between his predecessor Gul and R&AW chief A K Verma; but he reported back that the ISI had no official records. Benazir was accused of being a R&AW agent, which then Pakistan President Ghulam Ishaq Khan used to dismiss her in August 1990, egged on by Gen Gul.

Rajiv Gandhi, who was out of office, conveyed to Prime Minister Chandrashekar about the R&AW-ISI interaction and suggested a revival of this confidential diplomacy. Chandrashekar took up the matter with Sharif, who reverted that the ISI had no files about the meeting. Gul, who was contacted, totally denied the meeting.  New Delhi sent Sharif a summary of the discussions held at Amman and Geneva and also to check with Prince Hassan who had organised the meeting.

Sharif agreed to a resumption of the dialogue and a  third meeting was organised at Singapore between Lt General Assad Durrani and G S Bajpai Secretary R&AW. Gen Durrani made allegations about R&AW’s involvement in Sindh and it turned out to be a dialogue of the deaf. So much for intelligence cooperation between the two sides.
Indian Defence Review