New Delhi: India’s national security planners, after conducting a detailed analysis of the Inter Services Intelligence’s strategy, have determined that the battle must now be waged on three fronts.
Officials say the battle against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism is no longer expected to remain a conventional one. Following Operation Sindoor, Pakistan has allegedly decided to target India on three fronts, requiring all of them to be tackled simultaneously. Security planners believe meeting this multi-front challenge will be India’s biggest test.
The ISI would continue to encourage the setting up of home-grown modules in the country. It would back modules such as the one that was busted in Faridabad, Haryana. This change in strategy by the ISI came at a time when India rewrote its security doctrine.
Following the Pahalgam terror attack last year, India declared that it would no longer view terrorism merely as a cross-border attack, but would treat it as an act of war against the country. In the wake of this doctrinal shift, ISI is believed to have concluded that a direct military confrontation with India was no longer a viable option.
While Pakistani politicians periodically threaten India with war, officials say these statements are largely rhetorical and stand in contrast to the ground reality.
An Intelligence Bureau official says that Pakistan will ramp up drug smuggling using drones while also continuing to give a lot of emphasis to its underworld-terror modules. However, what it proposes to engage in the most is the disinformation campaign, the official added.
“Disinformation campaigns would peak the most when the Indian army undertakes some exercise. It would also go up considerably when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is making a foreign visit and also when some dignitary from abroad visits India,” the official pointed out.
Another official said that Pakistan wants the global narrative to be in its favour. It wants to internationalise the Kashmir issue. India, on the other hand, has maintained that Kashmir is an internal issue and there would be no global intervention on that.
The official said the Pakistani spy agency’s objective is to tarnish the image of the Prime Minister through sustained disinformation campaigns. According to the official, whenever Modi appears on the global stage, the ISI activates its network of operatives and sympathisers in both Pakistan and India to spread false narratives aimed at undermining both the PM and the purpose of his overseas engagements.
“These campaigns would focus largely on the Kashmir issue and the ISI-run social media handles would look to project India as the aggressor in the Valley and how atrocities have only risen under PM Modi,” officials say.
Security analysts say that the ISI would continue to push for infiltration into Kashmir and also drum up the Khalistan narrative.
However, the prime focus would be on increasing the drone supply chains to further narcotic smuggling, the underworld-terror nexus and a massive disinformation campaign. Such a push makes it harder for the Indian agencies to always keep track of it.
At times, the ISI would intentionally drum up the Khalistan narrative, and this would be aimed at shifting focus, analysts also warn.
Officials said infiltration and the Khalistan movement remain significant security concerns and require constant vigilance by the agencies. However, they cautioned that such developments could at times serve as smokescreens, diverting attention from what they described as the three primary fronts of Pakistan’s strategy.
The most challenging of the three remains the disinformation campaign, said the official.
“This spreads like wildfire, and by the time fact-checkers can do a course correction, the information would have reached millions of people,” the official added.
While disinformation campaigns targeting the Indian military have been underway for some time, intelligence agencies are increasingly concerned about what they describe as a concerted effort to tarnish the Prime Minister’s image. Officials say these are likely to be sustained campaigns aimed at undermining India’s international standing and diplomatic gains achieved under Modi’s leadership.
The official said the ISI would not be limited to spreading false information but is also expected to deploy deepfake videos extensively across social media platforms. The scale of the planned campaign, the official added, is expected to be significant, making it one of the biggest challenges for the agencies to counter.
(IANS)
