'From Russia to America, everyone is backing India': Ex-IB special director urges action against Pakistan over Pahalgam attack

NEW DELHI: Former special director, IB

Yashovardhan Jha Azad

has called for a "kinetic action" against Pakistan given that most countries including the US and Russia have expressed support for India.
In an exclusive interview with the TOI, Azad said, "It should be an open year because you will never get an opportunity like this where from Russia to America to every country is backing you. The opposition is backing you, the Kashmiris are backing you. So here is the time. Let Pakistan say whatever they feel like, but today is the time and you must consider kinetic action."
"There should be a massive thrust to covert action. When I talked about the intelligence overdrive, I didn't wanna talk too much about it, but there should be a massive thrust to covert action," he added.
He further talked about the details of security lapse in the days leading up to the

Pahalgam attack

that killed 26 on April 22.

When asked if he considered the terror attack a massive

intelligence failure

, Azad said, "Well, I must say that there was some intelligence inputs floating around and they said that some of the terrorists were recognizing the area and they were going around hotels and kind of assessing the topography."
Noting that there was a security lapse, he, however said that these "inputs were not really precise as to where exactly and what spot and things like that they were going to strike."
"Because that intelligence input could not be translated into action. You know, it couldn't be translated into actionable intelligence and the security could be put on ground," he said.
Responding to Pakistan's denial of involvement in the attack, Azad said, "There are three Pakistans. One is the Pakistan's ISI and the Pakistan army, which rules over. There is a second Pakistan, which is called the 'democratic government', under, apostrophe, completely subordinated to the end. And then you have the Pakistani polity, the people, many of them, middle class with aspirations like us."

"So when the MPs talk and taunting India, it is absolutely understandable when you have a Pak Army chief who talks more like a mullah and who's addressing the expatriate Pakistanis. In any democracy, it would be the foreign minister who would be addressing, but here the Army chief talks about things to expatriate and then he expounds theory on two-nation theory and says how Hindus and Muslims are different,"
"You can make out that here is a man who's virtually exporting terror. No wonder an ex-Pentagon official has said that Pakistan should be declared a rogue state," he added.
Reacting to Khwaja Asif's "doing West's dirty work" statement, Azad said, "Look at it that way in Afghanistan, what happened and what he's also said, they were virtually the, the two ISIS to to the Americans. All the American supply of weapons provisions, equipment was going from here."
On April 23, India announced a series of punitive measures against Pakistan, including the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty, closure of the sole operational land border at Attari, and downgrading of diplomatic ties, citing cross-border links to the attack.
In retaliation, Pakistan closed its airspace to Indian airlines and suspended all trade with India, including via third countries. Meanwhile, Pakistan carried out back-to-back missile tests, successfully launching the 'Fatah series' surface-to-surface missile with a 120-kilometre range on Monday, following Saturday’s successful training launch of the Abdali Weapon System, a surface-to-surface missile with a 450-kilometre range.