DC Expose: Baloch drug smuggler ratted out Kulbhushan Jadhav to ISI?

Bengaluru: Kulbhushan Jadhav, the former Indian naval officer who was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court for espionage, was led into a trap laid by a notorious Pakistani drug smuggler, after Jadhav alerted the Indian navy and coast guard about his boat that was heading into Porbandar with a cache of drugs and arms.

On New Year's eve in 2014, a Pakistani fishing vessel that quietly eased out of Keti Bunder in Karachi and made its way towards the Indian coast was spotted early the next day in rough seas, some 200 nautical miles off the coast of Gujarat, by the Indian Coast Guard. The nearest port was Porbandar. Intercepted by two Indian gunboats, it failed to stop even after warning shots were fired. After a 16 hour gunbattle, the crew set the trawler on fire and while several men on board were seen speeding away, four of the crew are reported to have died when the boat exploded on January 1, 2015. Coast Guard officials said they were mystified as to why the boat was set on fire. A year later, Jadhav was in Pakistani custody, accused of espionage.

Sources close to the development told Deccan Chronicle that contrary to reports that the Coast Guard may have thwarted a repeat of 26/11 when Pakistani terrorists entered Mumbai through the sea route and unleashed a 72 hour reign of terror, this fishing boat may have been part of a drug and gun smuggling operation that Kulbhushan Jadhav blew the lid off, leading to his capture and eventual handover to Pakistan by the man who owned the boat  - the notorious Baloch drug smuggler Haji Wali Mehmood Baloch who operates along the coast and has close links with the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI.

Meanwhile, a senior R&AW official who headed the Pakistan-Afghanistan desk confirmed reports that Jadhav had repeatedly offered his services to them between 2010 and 2012 with the first meeting taking place in New Delhi as early as 2001 when Jadhav had just retired and was planning to set up a business in Chabahar port in Iran. Anand Arni, the R&AW chief of the Pakistan desk said, "We met Jadhav in New Delhi, but we did not see him as a reliable asset and therefore, did not hire him."

Reports indicate that when Jadhav's dhow transport business Kaminda ran into financial trouble, he went back to R&AW, but Mr. Arni says that contrary to Mr Jadhav's confessional statement to the Pakistan Army that he had been on  the rolls from 2010, ten years after he moved to Iran, the Indian spy agency had not hired him.

Pakistani media on Wednesday took his purported direct contact with National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, to another level by claiming that Jadhav was even related to Doval.