Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) police on Thursday claimed to have arrested a suspected agent of India's premier intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), in Rawalakot, saying that the suspect had been blackmailed into working for it.

 

AJK Inspector General of Police (IGP) Liaqat Ali Malik said the suspect's handler allegedly operated a Facebook account with a Lahore address and initially assigned the suspect small, routine tasks. 

 

These tasks allegedly escalated to geotagging locations, sharing coordinates and recording videos of sensitive sites, including military installations, schools, bridges and government buildings across AJK and other parts of Pakistan.

 

“This time, the AJK police worked with sensitive institutions to take pre-emptive action and exposed this whole network,” Malik said, adding that enemy forces had "trapped" innocent young people while causing damage to life and property.

 

According to police, the alleged blackmail method begins with a fake social media account used to approach targets.

 

The handler allegedly gets malicious applications installed on the target’s device to record chats, intimate videos and pictures, which are then used as leverage to push the target into carrying out increasingly sensitive tasks, including information gathering on military sites and civilian institutions.

 

The detained individual also confessed to these claims in a video statement.

 

Malik commended his personnel for their role, saying that police would go to any lengths to end the enemy's impure intentions.

 

In December last year, the Punjab Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) arrested 12 suspected militants allegedly working for RAW during operations in Lahore, Faisalabad and Bahawalpur. 

 

In August, the CTD uncovered a RAW network that allegedly used Pakistani nationals and a separatist group in Sindh to carry out the targeted killing of a social worker in Matli, Badin district.