Pakistan's ISI asks network in India to join national political parties to escape security crackdown

Srinagar: In a move aimed at evading security crackdown and investigation into terror incidents, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has asked its established network of Over Ground Workers (OGWs) in Jammu and Kashmir to infiltrate mainstream national political parties, officials said on Sunday.

The ISI is also trying to recalibrate its strategy by making desperate attempts to revive dormant, locally-founded terror outfits from the early 1990s to give an "indigenous colour" to terrorist violence and mask the direct involvement by Pakistan, which is facing constant monitoring by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) -- the global watchdog on money laundering and terror financing.

According to officials of the central security agencies, recent interrogation of OGWs arrested by Srinagar police showed that some of them were part of national political parties.

By embedding terror sympathisers, who provide critical logistical support, recruitment and funding to terror outfits, in legitimate political structures, the ISI hopes to shield its assets from the ongoing operations by security forces.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the strategy stems from a sense of desperation and explained that the ISI is running out of options because their conventional terror groups are under intense pressure from security forces and the local support base for newer proxy outfits has shrunk significantly.

By trying to resurrect old names and blending their workers into mainstream politics, they are attempting to capitalise on a historical narrative to lure a new generation of youth while buying political immunity for their operatives.

According to officials, when an OGW is cornered during cordon and search operations, they often attempt to flash basic membership cards of national political parties in a futile bid to escape the dragnet.

Security officials have noted that this tactic has evolved over the decades as suspects routinely used voter identity cards to evade police in the late 1990s, and later tried to use Aadhar cards to dodge deep investigations.

The officials made it clear that no political leadership has ever stepped in to save such people.

In a related development, the OGW activities have been seen in reviving outfits that had become largely defunct after 1993.

The security agencies are now closely tracking the resurfacing of names of terror groups that defined the initial, bloody phase of the Jammu and Kashmir terror in the 1990s and early 2000s, including Al-Umar Mujahideen, Al Badr and Tehreek-ul-Mujahideen.

By attempting to revive these older, home-grown banners, the ISI aims to project a false narrative that the terror violence in Jammu and Kashmir is an internal, home-grown movement rather than a proxy war orchestrated from across the border, the officials said.

While the high command of these revived terror groups remains safely sheltered in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir, their ground-level networks are attempting to become active in propaganda, funding and radicalisation, they said.

The officials said that central intelligence agencies are maintaining a tight vigil on these developments and ensuring neutralisation of the logistical networks being spun by these resurfaced OGWs.

At the same time, they are aggressively combating the ideological subversion of youths by terror sympathisers as it will be critical in sustaining the hard-earned peace and stability in the region.