‘Cross LoC attacks set to rise exponentially’

Both overt and covert anti-India operations that are being carried out by rogue elements in Pakistan, will increase very sharply in the coming few months, intelligence gathered by the security agencies and shared with the top establishment has indicated.

According to these intelligence reports, a large number of extremely motivated terrorists, belonging to Jaish-E-Mohammad, are waiting to enter India to carry out terror operations in the Kashmir valley and urban areas, including Delhi and Mumbai.

Sources said that these inputs, gathered from the “ground”, have been corroborated with developments that are taking place along the India-Pakistan border.

Pakistan’s ISI has also taken note of the “upper-lower” caste divide that is brewing in India, especially central parts of the country, and working on ways to exploit the issue to foment trouble.

A security official tracking the developments told The Sunday Guardian: “This is being instigated through social media and we have asked our officers to take this very seriously as it has the capacity to cause more damage than an open terrorist attack. Sleeper cells of the ISI are working overtime to spread misinformation to instigate trouble between different castes as it has sensed that if exploited ‘properly’, it can cause a lot of trouble for us.”

Analysts, who follow social media footprints of Pakistan-based and ISI-backed terror groups, said the Ayodhya temple judgement, too, is being used to spread misinformation, especially in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Hyderabad, Assam, West Bengal and Maharashtra.

“The picture messages, which as per our investigations, have originated from outside India, are portraying that the entire government set-up in India, supported by the judiciary, is working towards getting hold of all the mosques and slowly converting them into temples. The intent is to make gullible people fall for this and agitate them. It is very hard for any government to completely stop such messages from spreading across the region, the only tool to fight this misinformation war is to give correct information quickly,” the security official said.

These extremely worrying developments, according to officials, are timed to take complete shape as the country goes to the 2019 polls next year.

“The volatile political environment, where individuals and supporters of political parties will be charged up and work overtime on the social media, will give these anti-India groups a perfect platform to spread rumours quickly,” he added.