New Delhi, June 4 (IANS) Post Operation Sindoor, Pakistan has indulged in multiple misadventures in India. The idea is to overcome the shame and humiliation that Pakistan, especially Field Marshal Asim Munir, had endured during the operation that was carried out to avenge the Pahalgam terror attack.

The infiltrations have virtually dried up, and multiple modules have been busted. This has forced Islamabad to change track and indulge in soft terror in India. An Intelligence Bureau official said that Pakistan, apart from focusing on a fake propaganda campaign, is now trying to heavily radicalise and recruit youth to carry out a graffiti war in India.

The main agenda is to highlight a non-existent group called the Tehreek-e-Taliban Hindustan (TTH). The larger idea is to link the TTH to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and pass it off as an India-created outfit. The official said that the ISI is looking to recruit scores of youth and instruct them to paint graffiti at important locations. The graffiti would highlight the TTH and India’s role in its creation. The graffiti would also focus on the Kashmir and Khalistan issues, with the message that India is an aggressor.

Further, there would be a heavy emphasis on promoting false narratives about India’s human rights record. It is part of the soft terror policy that Pakistan wants to indulge in, another official said. The idea is to have such graffiti appear at regular intervals across multiple locations. The main intention is to set up a narrative against the Narendra Modi government. This campaign is not about bombing properties or attacking them with guns. This is to attack the mindset of the youth, particularly those in colleges who are impressionable. Such graffiti could lead to many youth questioning the Indian state, and this could lead to protests and violence, the official added.

Officials say that the focus of the ISI is on the border states. They are looking to recruit youth from these states and instruct them to engage in a graffiti war. These youth are paid small sums of money to carry out the job. There is a special focus on those youth who are drug addicts, the official added.

These people need money and would not think twice before carrying out such tasks. Painting graffiti does not look like a heinous crime, and this is why such youth end up biting the bait. In reality, if such graffiti comes up at regular intervals and at various locations such as railway stations, college buildings, government offices and bus stands, it does create a sense of panic. This is the larger goal that the ISI wants to achieve in India, officials say.

Another official warned that the focus in the months to come would be heavy on amplifying the TTH. The official said that while one part of the strategy is to create panic, the other is to cover the Pakistan army’s back. In Pakistan, the security forces have been facing huge losses at the hands of the TTP. They have wreaked havoc on the security forces, and this has led to many being on the retreat. Asim Munir is also under pressure from his own people about the TTP. This led to the creation of a non-existent group called the TTH, and Pakistan wants to pass this off as a subsidiary of the TTP.

Munir has been aggressively pushing the narrative that the TTP has the backing of the Indian agencies. He wants to show that India is the aggressor and hence has unleashed the TTP on Pakistan. The same tactic was used in Afghanistan, where the Pakistanis accused the Afghan Taliban without proof that the TTP was being backed by them. Munir used this as an excuse to go to war with Afghanistan.

Outfits such as the TTP and Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) have not just been detrimental to the Pakistani security forces. Several Chinese investments have come under attack, and pressure from Beijing is only increasing by the day. An official said that all these factors have hurt Pakistan badly, and hence it wants to run a fake campaign by indulging in a graffiti war to show that India is behind all the attacks that have taken place in recent months.

Meanwhile, the agencies are keeping a close watch on recruitment activities in the bordering states. The agencies have managed to bust underworld-linked terror modules, several spying rings and also an operation in which solar-powered CCTV cameras were being installed at key locations to allow the ISI live access. With these plans failing, the ISI hopes it could win the battle against India by indulging in fake narrative campaigns and a graffiti war, the official also said.

–IANS

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