The Pakistan army may present Ehsanullah Ehsan, one of the top leaders of the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a terror faction of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), as RAW’s liaison who worked as the point man of the former Indian Navy officer, Kulbhushan Jadhav, sentenced to death on 10 April by a Pakistan military court for alleged espionage. This is being seen as a political manoeuvre to establish a connection between Jadhav and India’s external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). Ehsan “surrendered” last week, though sources told The Sunday Guardian that the fugitive had been picked up by the Pakistan army sometime in February or March.
The manoeuvre is necessitated by the Pakistan army’s failure to produce even a shred of evidence to corroborate its account that RAW sent Jadhav to spy on Pakistan. Even Pakistani Senators have questioned the Pakistan army over the lack of evidence either connecting Jadhav to RAW or linking him to terror activities carried out in Pakistan.
Sources in the Taliban who spoke to this newspaper said Ehsan was picked up on 7 March by ISI backed individuals from Paktika province of Afghanistan along with three others. Ehsan was incommunicado since the last week of January, when a non-Pakistani journalist spoke to him. At the time, he was stationed along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Sources tracking the development said Ehsan, on whose head the Pakistan government had announced a reward of $1 million, was the spokesperson of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), one of the multiple groups that work under the umbrella of the TTP.
“Since the TTP has been carrying out terrorist strikes inside Pakistan, the significance of Ehsan’s ‘surrender’ cannot be over emphasised for the Pakistan army now. The timing of the revelation that he surrendered is also very significant. Pakistan does not have virtually any evidence to prove that Jadhav was carrying out subversive activities inside Pakistan, as they have claimed. His death sentence will never pass the scrutiny of any international forum and, hence, this is where the ‘confession’ of Ehsan will come in handy. Imagine a known terrorist ‘confessing’ that he was working alongside Kulbhushan for RAW to carry out terrorist activities in Pakistan. This will be the next scene in the drama,” a source said.
Sources said it is likely that a confessional video of Ehsan, on the lines of Jadhav’s confessional video, would be staged on Pakistani TV channels, trying to establish the Ehsan’s so-called links with Jadhav and RAW.