As published in the Guardian in a piece by Ian Cobain on August 28, 2016, Churchill came to power on May 10 1940 and got the The Treachery Act passed from parliament on May 23 during WW2, outlawing conduct “designed or likely to give assistance to the naval, military or air operations of the enemy” had passed through parliament and received royal assent. It carried only one sentence: death.

The initial German spies to be prosecuted were the gang of four including Carl Meier, 23, a Dutch-born Nazi party member who had spent a little time in Birmingham before the war; Charles van den Kieboom, 25, a Dutch-Japanese dual national; Sjoerd Pons, 28, a Dutchman; and a 25-year-old who described himself as German and called himself Jose Waldberg. The trial lasted four days, the jury took less than 90 minutes to convict Meier and Kieboom, who were sentenced to death, along with Waldberg.

The gang of four was part of Operation Lena, the codename for the Abwehr’s contribution to Hitler’s invasion plan. Unofficially, their spymasters considered their mission to be so hazardous that they called it the Himmelfahrt, the ascension to heaven.

Why has Kulbhushan suddenly been declared as a son of the soil by the Indian head honchos?

The heated debate on the death sentence to Commander Kulbhushan Yadav (the Butcher of Balochistan) may have surprised many in the international media; however, they are missing the forest for a tree. Just to remind them about the Kulsbhushan enterprise and its cost extracted from Pakistan soil by Indian state sponsored terrorism would be a good start point.

The data gleaned from our research on cost of Kulbhushan Enterprise is mind boggling. This Indian Blue Bird was a top gun of RAW, funded to a tune of 500 million USDs with a strategic mission to achieve defined RAW objectives within Pakistan.

The timing of Indira Doctrine coincided with the implosion of civil war within Sri Lanka which changed this tourist paradise into a hell-hole for next three decades.

RAW’s next big game opened against arch-rival Pakistan after the fall of the Taliban regime, as Afghanistan became the centre of the power game led by the US with approximately 40 intelligence agencies actively pursuing their agenda. RAW exploited the swathes of ungovernable areas of Afghanistan for setting the bases across the Durand Line and even within some of Indian Consulates in Iran, with objectives such as befriending anti-Pakistan terrorist organisations and support selective but ruthless terrorist organisations like BLA, BRA, MQM (militant wings), TTP, LeJ, TTP, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Daish etc; penetrate the area west of River Indus including Balochistan to support proxy war against Pakistan; support dissident leadership of BLA etc, and supply them arms and ammunitions to sabotage life line of Balochistan, especially the communication networks; provide diplomatic support to dissident leaders and organise seminars and conferences in major capitals of the western world to highlight the cause of liberation of Balochistan.

The extent of RAW’s involvement in Karachi, Balochistan, KPK and even urban centres of Punjab and Sindh may not be fully known; however, the intelligence gathered from Commander Kulbhushan has uncovered some of the strategic directives given to him by South block and Mr Ajit Kumar Doval.

Pakistan’s defensive attitude to RAW’s blatant involvement within Pakistan in kinetic and non-kinetic domains is one reason this agency has operated so freely and ruthlessly on Pakistani soil. Despite the handing over of dossiers to Indian leadership in Sharm al Sheikh, the cosying of top political leadership to Indian overtures has probably convinced the Indian establishment that Pakistan was a soft state and its leadership could be taken for a ride behind the smoke screen of Bollywood and smiling Modi.

The Indian track record of dealing with her neighbours is not very bright, Pakistan had its share of four wars right from 1948 including dismemberment in 1971, Sikkim was absorbed, China was engaged in a war across the Himalayas in 1962, Sri Lanka was invaded and subjected to RAW’s proxy war for three decades, Maldives was coerced, even the Kingdom of Nepal has been isolated through trade embargos and arm-twisting. China has also been subjected to RAW’s proxy war within Chinese Tibet, so who is left? What could be Pakistan’s strategy to deal with RAW’s blatant involvement as this agency has been badly exposed to the entire world? This is the million-dollar question.

Pakistan has built up her case with complete preparation through the trove of intelligence gathered from Commander Kulbhushan and is presenting it bluntly to India. Pakistan also needs to share the information with Iran and Afghanistan with a request to uncover the Indian agenda to use the soil of friendly countries against Pakistan. For the international community and our western allies, Pakistan needs to build its case on the lines of post-Mumbai India; especially exposing the Indian state’s active involvement in unleashing a reign of terror within Pakistan.

The Kulbhushan enterprise was directly responsible for 1345 killings of innocent Pakistanis and injury to 7500, the financial cost to Pakistan has been approximately 3 billion USDs mainly in lost business and bad perception affecting tourism, sports (cricket), exports and imports; indirect cost may not be ever known. What about the kith and kin of Pakistanis, who perished due to the Kulbhushan Enterprise and the trauma suffered by loved ones? ‘Spy’ is a benign name and Kulbhushan was a mass murderer with the blood of 1345 Pakistanis dripping through his fingers; the Pakistani ‘liberrati’ and champions of human rights may comment on the plight of families whose bread earners perished in the heinous enterprise called Kulbhushan Yadav.

Indian frustration is also apparent as they find Indian-held Kashmir slipping away at a very fast pace, in order to hide their anxiety, the frenzied media, fed by RAW’s omnipresent hand is almost ‘barking at a high pitch’. Kashmir could also spell disaster for India as the adjoining state of Khalistan may be the next to demand autonomy and independence, Sikh diaspora is already gearing up for a global referendum called Khalistan 2020. India has her hands full and would do better to look inwards rather than blaming Pakistan and her intelligence agencies for every pot broken in the potter’s house.

Indian response by possible abduction of a retired Pak army officer from Nepal is boomeranging on India’s face; the concocted story prepared by RAW’s propaganda machine and being churned by Indian hostile media besides, it raises some important questions in the conduct of state craft.

Is India initiating a new game by abducting Pakistani nationals from foreign lands; especially in the Indian periphery, and, where do we go from here? India must realise that she has more assets in the neighbourhood including Afghanistan and the dangerous precedent of abducting nationals from SAARC countries could trigger a strategic response by other states, where RAW surrogates and spies will be forced to either quit their missions or hide like jackals.