Operation Topac

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

This thread is being started to refute the lie of Operation Topac. No such Operation existed, and no such briefing was given by the Zia-ul-Haq. This was a fictional scenario created in India, that has since found much credence amongst a lot of people, and the lie has propagated.

Researching this was a pain, since most internet links would merely present the details of this fictional briefing as if it was completely true and credit it to Gen. Zia-ul-Haq. I'll post the details of this fictional briefing first, and then the sources refuting it.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Operation Topac​

A presentation by General Zia in April 1988 in a ISI (Inter Service Intelligence Services, Pakistan's military intelligence agency)

Gentlemen, I have spoken on this subject at length before, therefore, I will knock out the details. As you know due to our pre-occupation in Afghanistan, in the service of Islam, I have not been able to put these plans before you earlier. Let there be no mistake, however, that our aim remains quite clear and firm-the liberation of Kashmir Valley - our Muslim Kashmiri brethren in the valley cannot be allowed to stay on with India for any length of time now. In the past we had opted for hamhanded military options and, therefare, failed. So, as I have mentioned before, we now keep our military option for the last moment as a coup de grace, if and when necessary. Our Kashmiri brethren in the valley, though with us in their hearts and minds are simple-minded folk and do not easily take to the type of warfare to which, say a Punjabi or an Afghan takes to naturally, against foreign domination. The Kashmiris however have a few qualities which we can exploit. First, his shrewdness and intelligence; second, his power to preservere under pressure; and the third, if I may say so, he is a master of political intrigue. If we provide him means through which he can best utilize these qualities- he will deliver the goods. Sheer brute force is in any case not needed in every type of warfare, especially so in the situation obtaining in the Kashmir valley, as I have explained earlier.

Here we must adopt those methods of combat which Kashmiri mind can grasp and cope with in other words, a coordinated use of moral and physical means other than military operations, which will destroy the will of the enemy, damage his political capacity and expose him to the world as an oppressor. This aim, Gentlemen, shall be achieved in the initial phases.

In the first phase, which may, if necessary last, a couple of years we will assist our Kashmiri brethren in getting hold of the power apparatus of the State by political subversion and intrigue. I would like to mention here that as no Government can survive in Occupied Kashmir unless it has tacit approval of Delhi, it would be unrealistic to believe that the MUF or any such organization can seize power through democratic or other means. In view of this, power must "apparently" remain with those whom New Delhi favors. We must therefore ensure that certain "favored politicians" from the ruling elite be selected who would colloborate with us in subverting all effective organs of the State. In brief, our plan for Kashmir, which will be code named as "Op Topac" will be as follows:

Phase 1

A low-level insurgency against the regime, so that it is under siege, but does not collapse as we would not yet want certral rule imposed by Delhi.

We plant our chosen men in all the key positions, they will subvert the police force, financial institutions, the communication net work and other important organizations.

We whip up anti-India feelings amongst the students and peasants, preferably on some religious issues, so that we can enlist their active support for rioting and anti-Government demonstrations.

Organize and train subversive elements and armed groups with capabilities, initially to deal with paramilitary forces located in the valley.

Adopt and develop means to cut off lines of communications between Jammu and Kashmir and within Kashmir and Ladakh by stealth, without recourse to force. The road over Zojila upto Kargil and the road over Khardungla should receive special attention.

In collaboration with Sikh extremists create chaos and terror in Jammu and divert attention from the valley at a critical juncture and discredit the regime even in the Hindu mind.

Establish virtual control in those parts of Kashmir Valley where the Indian army is not located or deployed. The Southern Kashmir Valley may be one such region.

Phase 2

Exert maximum pressure on Siachen, Kargil and Rajuri-Punch sectors to force the Indian army to deploy reserve formations outside the main Kashmir Valley.

Attack and destroy base depots and HQ located at Srinagar, Pattan, Kupwara, Baramulla and Chowkiwala by covert action at a given time.

Some Afghan Mujahideen by then settled in Azad Kashmir, will then infiltrate in the pockets with a view to extending areas of our influence. This aspect will require detailed and ingenious planning. The fiasco of Op Gibralter (1965) holds many lessons for us here.

Finally a Special Force under seleaed retired officers belonging to Azad Kashmir, with the hard core consisting of Afghans, will be ready to attack and destroy airfields, radio stations, block Banihal Tunnel and Kargil-Leh Highway.

At a certain stage of the operations Punjab and adjacent areas of Jammu and Kashmir will be put under maximum pressure internally by our offensive posture.

Phase 3

Detailed plans for the liberation of Kashmir Valley and establishment of an independent Islamic State in the third phase will follow.

We do not have much time. Maximum pressure must be exerted before the general elections in India and before the Indian Army reserves which are still bogged down in Sri Lanka become available. By the Grace of God, we have managed to accumulate large stocks of modern arms and ammunition from the US consignments intended for Afghan Mujahideen. This will help our Kashmiri brethren achieve their goals. Even if we create a kind of "Azad Kashmir" in some remote parts of Occupied Kashmir as a beginning, the next step may not be as difficult as it appears today. On the other hand, it should also be noted that a part of Indian Army, particularly the Infantry, will be well trained by now for such a situation due to their experience in North Eastern Region and more recently in Sri Lanka. But the situation in Kashmir will be somewhat different; more like the "Infetada" of Palestinians in towns, and on the pattern of Mujahideen in the countryside to attack hard targets. A period of chaos in the State is essential in the circumstances.

And what about our Chinese friends ? They can do no more than ensure that Indian forces deploys against them are not moved out; but this may be required only at the last or the third stage of our operations. Of course, if we are in a serious trouble, the Chinese and our other powerful friends shall come to our rescue one way or the other. They will ensure that if we do not win - we don't lose.

Finally, I wish to caution you once more that it will be disastrous to believe that we can take on India in a straight contest. We must therefore, be careful and maintain a low military profile so that the Indians do not find an excuse to preempt us, by attacking at a time and at a point of their own choosing at least before Phase I and 2 of the Operation are over. We must pause and assess the course of operations after each phase, as our strategy and plans may require drastic changes in certain circumstances. I need not emphasize any further that a deliberate and objective assessment of the situation must be ensured at each stage, otherwise a stalemate will follow with no good for Pakistan.

Pakistan Paindabad.

Operation Topac

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Refutation:

"When militancy erupted in Kashmir in 1989, some in New Delhi attributed it to Zia-ul-Haq's "Operation Topac". It was in fact a document published in Indian Defence Review in July 1989 sketching a scenario in the form of a speech by Zia. For quite some time our columnists had a field day brandishing it as "evidence". Only one writer had the courage and integrity to admit the error - K. Subrahmanyam."
Nehru vs Nehru

By the way, that site also mentions Nehru's subtle attempts to get the issue of Pakhtunistan going on Pakistan's Western border, a plan that the GoA then did put into practice, but which failed miserably.

Also:

" The broad sketch of Operation Topac was published in the July 1989 issue of the Indian Defence Review (IDR), the leading defense studies journal in India. According to the IDR, "the main contents from the President's address , which were leaked out, probably through a mole from a third world country, became available to India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) agents some time in September-October 1988. This document received much attention within the national security and intelligence communities in India. Edward Desmond and Victoria Schofield eventually reported that K Subrahmanyam, one of the architects of India's national security structure, acknowledged that Operation Topac was the result of a war-game scenario devised by the Indian intelligence service, RAW, and not and actual plan developed by Pakistani president Zia-ul-Haq."

Excerpt From, South Asia's Nuclear Security Dilemma
By Lowell Dittmer

Case closed on the mythical Operation Topac I believe.

 

[genmirajborgza786]

what is operation topac isn't this was the name of a rap singer who got killed ?

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

what is operation topac isn't this was the name of a rap singer who got killed ?

That was Tupac Shakur.

Read the posts above to find out what Operation Topac was, or rather wasn't.

 

[Goodperson]

Operation Topac

The division of Pakistan in 1971 giving rise to Bangladesh led to Pakistan policy being guided by a predominant anti India bias. The latest desire to balkanise India is thus the fallow of historical factors.

The so-called Operation Topac did not concern J&K alone; it was in fact a grand design outlining Pakistan's strategy to balkanise India by employing a low cost option which was expected, with assistance from the ISI, to snowball into a civil war. Considering the inherent contradictions of the Indian polity, Pakistan's leadership believed this to be a practicable option and the ISI was tasked to execute this operation. The plan was essentially simple but its success depended on the outcome of a series of graduated occurrences which would form the foundation for subsequent stages.

Specialists were employed to identity the various contradictions inherent in the Indian society which could be converted into major conflicts. Task forces were then instituted to go into the details of each. These task forces were asked to make detailed plans which were finalised between 1984 - 85. Factors like the assassination of Prime. Minister Indira Gandhi and the ensuing Delhi riots confirmed Pakistan's conviction that India could be easily destabilised. The providential Afghan war provided the necessary conditions and resources to execute one of the most innovative and audacious covert actions launched by any Intelligence agency in recent history.

By 1986 the ISI was well entrenched in Bombay as that city was selected as the financial and political focal point for larger 'Operation Topac'. Delhi, Bangalore, Madras and Lucknow were developed as subsidiary bases. However, terrorist operations in Punjab and J&K were directly controlled from Pakistan. Operations in the rest of the country were controlled from Bombay. A third front in the North-East was also activated. The final phase came through exploitation of the window of opportunity provided by the situation in Sri Lanka giving Pakistan the LTTE card to exploit dissident elements in South India.

Punjab was a ready-made situation which proved easy to exploit. Punjab terrorists were trained in Pakistan. Various gangs operated under selected officers of the ISI. The drug lords were enlisted to establish an unholy nexus with terrorists, thus for the first time employing Narco- terrorism against India. The terrorists were employed by the drug barons of the golden crescent to transfer drugs to India from where they were ultimately dispatched via the Western seaboard or by air from Delhi or Bombay to Europe or the US, via the Gulf or Africa. Thus a regular international chain was established by 1986-87. The Punjab terrorists, main source of finance came to be Bombay as it was the financial headquarters of this unholy nexus. It was drug money which financed terrorism in Punjab.

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/LANCER/idr00007.htm

 

[Goodperson]

excerpts-

Ahmed(*) admits that it was on his advice that General Zia had started 'Operation Topac'. But he makes it clear that "Operation Topac's idea is not to get Kashmir for Pakistan as thought of by Indian analysts. Operation Topac is much more. The ultimate aim of Operation Topac is to break India into a million pieces so that it is easy for Pakistan to swallow India one piece at a time."

((*)Jamaat chief, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, who once was adviser to General Zia-ul-Haq. It was published in February 1999 in a monthly Baluchi magazine Jamhooria Islamia. )

rediff.com: Claude Arpi on the many Ladens

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

GP:

Did you bother to read the refutations above before barging in to cut and past more lies?

If the Operation was fictional to begin with, there is no way it could have been "a grand design outlining Pakistan's strategy to balkanise India".

Some level of thinking and reading existing posts before posting your own comments woudl be beneficial I believe.

Unless you can counter the refutations posted, any amount of posting more lies is not going to make it come true.

 

[iamunique]

Thank you for this useful post sir. But it is depressing to realise that even after such a realistic war-gaming scenario was proposed by the RAW, the GOI & the army and the various other players took no notice of it and thereby failed to take premptive steps to address the prospect of insurgency in Kashmir. Indeed, can we agree that the 'mythical' Operation Topac DOES bears an uncanny resemblence to the real scenario which unfolded in Kashmir?

 

[Goodperson]

Title: Daily Describes Activities of ISI in India

Document Number: FBIS-NES-1999-0630
Document Date: 30 Jun 1999
Sourceline: BK3006113499 Delhi The Pioneer in English 30 Jun 99 p 10
Subslug: Article by Wilson John: "ISI Fangs"


[FBIS Transcribed Text]PAKISTAN'S INTER Services Intelligence (ISI) has
done what its Army can never do. It has captured the vitals of the
nation, its tentacles are spread across every nook and cranny-from
Gujarat to Assam, from Kashmir to Kerala. It can trigger blasts in remote
places, fuel communal riots in peaceful cities and blow up railway
stations anywhere it wishes to. It can spread terror wherever, whenever.
Its control is full and final. There is not a city in the country which
doesn't have either an active or a sleeper agent of the ISI. This agent
can be your friendly next door neighbour or the local tailor or a
businessman. They have been brainwashed or inculcated into the fold by
the ISI either by financial allurement or in the name of religion.
Whatever might be the provocation, the ISI agents are motivated enough to
carry out the orders of their masters in Islamabad.
The ISI has taken more than 28 years to implement its plan of action.
After the 1971 bifurcation of erstwhile Pakistan into two nations, the
ISI, which works under the overall control of the Pak Army, has been
working with the sole objective of avenging the defeat and balkanise
India. The plan was conceived by President Ziaul-Haq and was called
Operation Topac.
The objectives of Operation Topac were; a) to disintegrate India; b) to
utilise the spy network to act as an instrument of sabotage; c) to
exploit porous borders with Nepal and Bangladesh to set up bases and
conduct operations.
A close look at the ISI structure as it exists in Pakistan will reveal
the extent of Islamabad's nefarious designs. The ISI is headquartered in
Islamabad and works under a Director General, a serving Lieutenant
General of the Pakistan Army. There are three Deputy Director
Generals-designated DDG (Political), DDG (External) and DDG (General).
The ISI is staffed mainly by personnel deputed from the police,
para-military forces and some specialised units of the Army. There are
over 25,000 active men on its staff.
The largest wing of the ISI is the Joint Intelligence Bureau; it covers
areas like political parties, anti-terrorism, VIP security, labour and
students. The bureau has specialised sections-one dealing exclusively
with India, another on Communist countries and the third on Africa and
West Asia. This wing is primarily responsible for appointment and posting
of personnel at missions abroad.
The second most important wing is the Joint Signal Intelligence Bureau
which looks after the communication network of the ISI and collects
Intelligence through monitoring of communications channels of
neighbouring countries. A sizeable number of the staff is from the Army
Signal Corps. It has its units in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar. It
monitors, clicks photos and intercepts wireless communication. Its main
activity, however, is to keep track of troop movements along the Indian
border. During the 1971 operations, it had over 200 clandestine radio
stations on the war front.
The third significant wing of the ISI is the Joint Counter-Intelligence
Bureau which, as the name suggests, keeps a surveillance on foreign
missions and the ISI personnel. The branch which deals exclusively with
India is the Joint Intelligence North (JIN). Its primary responsibility
is to carry out operations in J&K and Afghanistan. It has been the
main fund-raiser for J&K militants. The wing has also been providing
arms and ammunition and operational guidance besides training Kashmiri
youth in *** camps.
The ISI's main target has been Jammu and Kashmir where the first seed of
terrorism was planted in the early '80s. It began with indoctrination and
an India-hate propaganda. There were innocuous signs of militancy on the
street walls where the most timid graffiti read: "Indian Dogs Go Back".
These graffiti were soon replaced by street bandhs [strikes] and protest
rallies and by the beginning of '90s, active terrorism had begun to creep
up the pristine valleys of Kashmir. The ISI proactively trained
frustrated youth, bribed and funded the so-called political and society
leaders and subverted the law and order system in the State so much that
the Indian Government had to send in the Army.
The ISI had achieved first of its objectives early in the '90s. Kashmir
had become an international issue with terrorism taking a deep root in
its streets and bylanes. Orchestrated propaganda within and outside the
country kept the Kashmir issue alive in international for an objective
which gave Pakistan a fake legitimacy of being the underdog.
The plan to take over J&K was drafted in the mid-80s. The blueprint
was prepared by the ISI chief in 1984 to aid and abet militancy in
Kashmir. Amanullah Khan, chairman of the J&K Liberation Front, was
consulted, Mohammad Rauf Khan, senior vice-president of the JKLF a
terrorist outfit since banned, was sent to the valley in 1978-88 to
mobilise youth to join ISI camps across the Line of Control of arms
training. Over 20,000 persons infiltrated into Pakistan.
After pushing in militants, initially under the banner of JKLF, ISI
floated several organisations-Hizb-ul-Maujahideen, Hizb-ul-Islam, Allah
Tigers, Al-Umar Mujahideen, Muslim Mujahideen, Harkat Ul Ansar and Jamaat
Hurriyat Conference. Besides funding, the ISI supplied both assault
rifles and other sophisticated arms to the militants which included
Draganov sniper rifles, anti-aircraft missiles and remote explosives. It
also flooded the Valley with Improvised Explosive Devices which, till
this date, continue to take a heavy till on security forces deployed for
counter-insurgency operations.
The ISI has been concentrating on Punjab, especially after Bhindaranwale
inspired terrorism was quashed by KPS Gill and his band of supercops.
Since then, the ISI has been promoting various terrorist groups like the
International Sikh Youth Federation led by Lakhbir Singh Rode, Khalistan
Commando Force, Babbar Khalsa International and Khalistan Liberation
Force of Pritam Singh Sekhon. The ISI has been working in the North-East
and Southern parts of India. Its links with North-East insurgents are
well documented. It has not only been funding some out of the militant
outfits but also been providing them with arms and ammunition and
training facilities in neighbouring Nepal.
The ISI's hand in the Mumbai and Coimbatore blasts has proved that it
has been working quietly in spreading a terror network all over India.
So while our soldier are fighting the enemy. Its agents are moving
around freely, setting up bombs and creating communal rifts with
impunity. Has ISI's Operation Topac succeeded? This is a question which
every citizen of this free democracy should be asking today.

[Description of source: The Pioneer--Independent daily with a reputation for
strong coverage of domestic issues and thoughtful editorial positions;
owned by the Thapar Group]

http://www.fas.org/irp/world/pakistan/isi/india.html

 

[Goodperson]

Sorry the earlier articles were from bharat-rakshak and rediff hence had to put article from neutral country hence missed reading AM's post.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Thank you for this useful post sir. But it is depressing to realise that even after such a realistic war-gaming scenario was proposed by the RAW, the GOI & the army and the various other players took no notice of it and thereby failed to take premptive steps to address the prospect of insurgency in Kashmir. Indeed, can we agree that the 'mythical' Operation Topac DOES bears an uncanny resemblence to the real scenario which unfolded in Kashmir?

There is not much the GoI could have done. There isn't much the GoI could do even now were Pakistan to cancel the ceasefire on the LoC, and resort once again to providing covering fire and actively assist insurgents in infiltrating.

The 'war game' itself was a bit more than what Pakistan was envisioning IMO - Pakistan's policy was to always force India back to the negotiating table and implement the agreements at the UN and the UNSC resolutions.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Sorry the earlier articles were from bharat-rakshak and rediff hence had to put article from neutral country hence missed reading AM's post.

It doesn't matter what sources you post articles from, its been established beyond a doubt that Operation Topac was a fictional 'war-game' scenario created by the Indian defence establishment.

None of the articles you posted have any credence after that.

 

[Vinod2070]

I think the Operation Topac was a real operation but the speech was just a hypothetical one.

Will try to find some links on that.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

I think the Operation Topac was a real operation but the speech was just a hypothetical one.

Will try to find some links on that.

Pleas read the refutations, the whole thing was a fictional exercise drummed up in India. The fictional speech itself was based on a fictional Operation.