Pakistan is no stranger to spies, but it does discern how they are treated

In a security state like Pakistan, espionage is considered the ultimate crime and someone working for any perceived foreign/hostile intelligence agency, is considered the ultimate criminal. But even here, Pakistanis tend to discriminate.

Kulbhushan Jadhav, the alleged Indian spy, is the current focal point for all the hate Pakistanis can muster.

According to the Inter-Services Public Relations press release, Jadhav was arrested on March 3, 2016, through a counter-intelligence operation in Balochistan’s Mashkel area for his involvement in espionage and sabotage activities against Pakistan. He later confessed his involvement in terrorist acts across Pakistan before a first class judicial magistrate (confession before a judicial magistrate is considered permissible evidence under Pakistani law). Jadhav was summarily condemned to death through Field General Court Martial (FGCM) under Pakistan Army Act.

There was a huge clamour from every political group within Pakistan to show no mercy towards this dreaded saboteur, especially one supposedly belonging to a hostile intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). “Those plotting against Pakistan will not be spared,” said Pakistani Defense Minister, Khawaja Asif.

Contrast this with the case of American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) private contractor, Raymond Davis, who killed two ordinary citizens in Lahore in broad daylight in January 2011. Despite killing two reportedly armed men in Lahore, the US government contended that he was protected by diplomatic immunity because of his employment with the US Consulate.

Davis was one of those thousands of private spies (working with private US security firms but on a contract with the CIA) issued visas by Pakistani government to operate freely in Pakistan. It was later revealed that Davis was on a mission in Lahore to spy on Punjab-based militant groups, some of which have headquarters in city’s vicinity.

A scuffle took place between Davis and two young motorcyclists and the American killed them with his pistol in the heart of the city and was arrested by the local police.

Under Washington’s diplomatic pressure, however, Pakistani state machinery and the top-ranking spy masters became involved in the case to get Raymond Davis a pardon from the families of those killed by him — under the provision of Islamic law diyya, according to which the family can pardon the killer after taking blood money.

The Pakistani media widely reported that intelligence sleuths put pressure on the families to take the blood money and pardon the killer who was later taken out of Pakistan via a private plane after the “dubious” transaction.

Why were these two foreign intelligence agents treated so differently by the Pakistani state machinery? Especially when the evidence available to implicate them in crimes violating Pakistani law was so hugely uneven: Davis was arrested at the scene of the crime with the weapons with which he killed the two young men in Lahore, whereas details of the arrest of Jadhav were hidden from public eye and belong to the murky realm of intelligence.

The Pakistani government, however, thinks that the case against Jadhav is absolute, which is evident from the video statement of his confession they recorded after his arrest. In it, he confessed to sponsoring terror acts and terror financing in troubled spots like Balochistan and Karachi. He is also said to have confessed that he was working for Indian spy agency, RAW.

After Jadhav’s arrest in 2016, the political response was typical. His arrest was celebrated as a big coup by country’s security agencies, while on the other hand, Prime Minister Sharif came under scathing criticism for not taking a firm stance against “Indian interference” in the internal affairs of Pakistan. Some of the opposition leaders went to the extent of accusing Sharif of hosting RAW agents in his sugar mills.

This had the required effect, as the most verbose leader of Sharif’s party, Defense Minister, Khawaja Asif, came out with one jingoistic statement after another while announcing Jadhav’s sentence.

People from across the political spectrum came out in support of the death sentence and coaxed the government to present and project the case against Jadhav to the international community.

In this clamour of jingoism, there is not a single voice of sanity, which could predict the impact of this death sentence on the already deteriorating Pak-India relations.

With every step we are taking, we are drifting away from any possibility of normalising relations between the two South Asian neighbours. 

On the same evening, the judgment was announced, I shared my thoughts with a group of journalists and intellectuals in Islamabad. I was taken aback by the crude response: “Should we present flowers to the person who has confessed to committing terror acts in our country?” asked one angry journalist. “No, you should not, but you should not unnecessarily provoke the Indian government which is already provoked by deadly terror attacks on their soil by the groups operating from our soil,” I replied.

But these Pakistani intellectuals did not appreciate my response which was not to their jingoistic taste. There are people in Islamabad who think that this is a time for Pakistan to formulate its foreign policy along pragmatic lines and avoid unnecessary provocations. But they are either too afraid to take a public position or their voices drown in the sea of jingoism.

To my friends in Islamabad that evening, I also presented the argument that the intelligence agencies of Pakistan and India have been carrying out hostile acts against each other’s country for the past 70 years. There is nothing new about it to justify a provocation of this nature at this critical juncture in our relations. But my argument fell on deaf ears.

Pakistan has a history of hosting foreign intelligence agents in large numbers and the country’s military governments have largely supported the role of foreign intelligence agencies in Pakistani society over the years. Recently, government figures presented in Parliament stated that in the two years prior to May 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden hideout in Abbottabad, the then government issued 50,000 visas to US spies in Pakistan. But then Pakistanis are famous for discrimination.

One thing that particularly concerns me, is that whenever there is a wave of anti-India feelings in our society, religious extremism comes as part of that package. The rise in this anti-India feelings is always followed or preceded by a rising tide of religious extremism. There is very little realisation in Pakistani official circles that combating religious extremism which is the stated policy of the state now, is defeated the moment the same state machinery starts fueling anti-India feelings in society.