Handler ‘AD’, a WhatsApp Conspiracy, and a Supari Paid from Greece
Two security personnel — an ASI and a Home Guard jawan — were shot dead in their sleep at a border outpost in Gurdaspur. Behind the attack: a Pakistan-ISI orchestrated murder-for-hire, a shadowy online handler, and ₹1 lakh wired from Europe.
⚠ INVESTIGATION ONGOING — One accused (Ranjit) killed in police encounter. Two others in custody. Handler ‘AD’ remains unidentified. AGTF Punjab actively working to dismantle ISI module.
In the early hours of February 22, the Adhiyan border outpost — a small, newly built post stationed roughly two kilometres behind the international boundary in Gurdaspur, Punjab — fell silent for reasons no one inside had chosen. By morning, Home Guard jawan Ashok Kumar and Punjab Police ASI Gurnam Singh were both dead, shot while they slept. The outpost they had been assigned to guard was no ordinary watch post; it was part of Punjab Police’s “Second Line of Defence,” a cordon erected specifically to intercept Pakistan-backed drug and weapons consignments.
What followed was not merely a criminal investigation but the unravelling of a cross-border murder conspiracy orchestrated, according to the Punjab Police, by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence — a conspiracy that wound through encrypted WhatsApp chats, an advance payment transferred from Greece, and a handler whose true identity remains unknown to this day.
The Second Line of Defence — and Why It Became a Target
Punjab Police, in coordination with the Border Security Force, had deployed a ring of small outposts approximately two kilometres behind the international border. The strategy was deliberate: Pakistan-linked syndicates had long used drone drops to deliver narcotics and weapons into agricultural fields along the border, where local operatives would retrieve the consignments. The second line was designed to catch those local operatives before they could disappear.
The Adhiyan outpost sat squarely within this net. For the ISI — which, according to the DIG of the Amritsar Range, Sandeep Goyal, backs these drug and weapons syndicates — the post was an operational liability. Eliminating it, or at minimum terrorising the personnel stationed there, served a dual purpose: it could demoralise the security apparatus and demonstrate the reach of Pakistan’s networks deep inside Indian territory.
“The accused — Ranjit, Dilawar, and Indrajit — were in contact with a handler from the ISI. This conspiracy was being orchestrated through the individual known only as ‘AD’.” — Sandeep Goyal, DIG, Amritsar Range
How ‘AD’ Built the Cell
The attack was not improvised. Investigators have pieced together a recruitment chain that began with a single WhatsApp contact. A handler using the identity ‘AD’ reached out to Ranjit and Indrajit — the latter already carrying criminal cases related to drug trafficking, making him, in the calculus of covert recruitment, an easy mark. Through Ranjit and Indrajit, a third man, Dilawar, was drawn in. None of them, police believe, had any clear picture of who ‘AD’ truly was or who stood behind him.
The assignment was specific: kill the personnel stationed at the Adhiyan outpost. The communication channel was WhatsApp. The instruction came from a handler operating under ISI direction. And the agreed payment — the supari, or contract sum — was four lakh rupees.
Money from Greece, Cash in Batala
To move money without triggering immediate banking scrutiny, the ISI’s network used a layered transfer. One lakh rupees — the advance — was wired from an account in Greece to an individual based in Batala, Punjab, via Western Union. That individual then physically handed the cash to the accused as a down payment before the attack.
The mechanism is significant: it reflects an established ISI playbook of using diaspora nodes in Europe and the Middle East to funnel money into Punjab without direct Pakistan-to-India transfers that might attract surveillance. The operatives on the ground receive cash; the foreign origin of the funds is obscured by at least one intermediary layer.
After the Killings: Propaganda and Claims
Within hours of the attack, the operation was claimed publicly — not by a state actor, but by the Tehrik-i-Taliban. Separately, a Pakistani criminal named Shahzad Bhatti circulated footage of the murders on social media, amplifying the psychological impact of the attack well beyond Gurdaspur. The online amplification, investigators believe, was not incidental but part of the operation’s design: maximum publicity to signal capability.
The ISI’s Evolving Module in Punjab
The Gurdaspur killings are not an isolated incident but a window into a broader operational framework the ISI is building inside Punjab. Under this model, local youth — often already in the orbit of drug networks — are recruited remotely through encrypted calls and WhatsApp. Tasks range from smuggling consignments to targeted killings. Advance payments arrive from abroad directly into operatives’ bank accounts or, as in this case, through cash intermediaries.
The operatives who carry out these tasks frequently have no knowledge of the larger structure they are serving. They receive payment; they execute instructions; they remain, in the language of intelligence tradecraft, “access agents” — useful, expendable, and unaware of their handlers’ true identities or affiliations. The Anti-Gangster Task Force (AGTF) of the Punjab Police is currently working to dismantle this network.
The identity of ‘AD’ — the WhatsApp handler at the centre of the Gurdaspur conspiracy — remains unknown. Ranjit, one of the three accused, is dead, killed in a police encounter. Dilawar and Indrajit are in custody. The investigation continues.
Investigation based on Punjab Police briefings & DIG statement. Additional reporting from Gurdaspur Bureau.
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