ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said on Saturday it had arrested a local fisherman allegedly coerced by Indian intelligence to work for them and carry propaganda material to the neighboring state, including military uniforms, local currency, mobile SIMs of a Chinese company and other items.
Earlier this year in July, Indian Home Minister Amit Shah told parliament that his country's forces had recovered Pakistani voter identity cards and chocolates from a group of slain militants whom he said were also involved in a gun attack in the tourist resort of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir that took place in April.
New Delhi had blamed Pakistan for the assault, an allegation denied by Islamabad which called for an impartial international probe. The incident led to an intense four-day military conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbors in May before US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire.
“Recently, we had a big success in which Pakistani law enforcement agencies have apprehended a common fisherman by the name of Ijaz Mallah, who used to go fishing in the high seas,” Federal Information Minister Attaullah Tarar told a news conference in Islamabad. “In September this year, when he was out fishing, he was arrested by the Indian Coast Guard and after this arrest, he was taken to an undisclosed location where he was coerced and forced to do some tasks for the Indian intelligence agency.”
Tarar said Mallah was promised compensation but also threatened with imprisonment if he refused.
“The fisherman was tasked to procure uniforms of the Pakistan Navy, Army and Sindh Rangers with certain name tags and measurements,” he said. “He was also asked to get Pakistani currency, cigarettes, matchboxes, lighters and specifically Zong SIM cards for mobile phones.”
“He procured all these items and he was on his way to India when law enforcement agencies apprehended him from the sea, arrested him and took these items into custody,” Tarar added. “This is part of a greater plan of India to malign Pakistan through propaganda, disinformation and misinformation.”
The minister showed what he described as a confession video of Mallah, in which the fisherman said he was detained by India’s Coast Guard while fishing, pressured by an intelligence agency to collect military uniforms and other items and later apprehended again by Pakistani authorities.
Tarar said the case illustrated India’s “nefarious designs” and alleged the operation might be linked to ongoing Indian naval exercises in the Gujarat area.
“We are placing this evidence before the entire world so India’s conspiracies can be exposed,” he said.
Fishermen from India and Pakistan are frequently detained by the authorities of the other country after crossing maritime boundaries, often without realizing it, turning routine fishing trips into ordeals that can last months or even years.
While most such crossings are inadvertent, both sides often treat them as breaches of sovereignty, leading to arrests and prolonged detentions.
