Delhi cops claim man mentioned in toolkit associated with ISI

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police on Monday said they were probing how the name of Pieter Friedrich, who they claimed was associated with a module of the Pakistan’s Inter-services Intelligence (ISI), figured in the toolkit that was tweeted by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and is now being probed in connection with the violence during the January 26 farmers’ tractor rally.

The police said the document aimed to spread misinformation, tarnish India’s image, and incite unrest.

At a press briefing on Monday, police told reporters that the document that was tweeted and later withdrawn by Thunberg mentioned the name of Friedrich, who has been on the radar of the security agencies since late 2006 when he was associated with one Bhajan Singh Bhinder alias Iqbal Chaudhary, a leading proponent of the K2 (Kashmir-khalistan) desk of ISI.

Thunberg later posted an updated document.

On Monday, an account that ostensibly belonged to Friedrich, tweeted: “‘Delhi Police on Monday unearthed the role of pro-pakistan and Khalistan sympathiser Pieter Friedrich.’ For the record, not only do I not support Khalistan, but the Khalistan movement today appears to nothing more than a psy-ops project of the Modi regime.”

On Saturday, Delhi Police’s cyber crime unit arrested 22-year-old climate activist Disha Rai from her home in Bengaluru for allegedly working on the toolkit related to the farmers’ protest, and brought her to Delhi.

Activists from various organisations said creating a toolkit was standard operating procedure for advocacy and media outreach, and did not constitute a crime as it was entirely up to people whether or not to follow what toolkits suggested.