When former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan started his 26-hour march from Peshawar to Islamabad on May 25, 2022, demanding a date for elections, troops armed with weapons, rubber bullets, shotguns and tear gas were ready to disperse his supporters. But the aftermath of their intervention was unprecedented. Several demonstrators fainted after inhaling tear gas. Scattered cannisters on the streets showed the use of riot control agents, the common one being Ortho-Chlorobenzylidene Malononitrile, known as CS gas.
The CS gas is known to cause a wide range of symptoms impacting the eyes, lungs, skin and also dizziness. In large quantities, it can be lethal. Its use in war is prohibited under the Chemical Weapons Convention, signed by most countries in 1993. The convention came into effect in 1997, but an exception was allowed to use it for domestic riot control purposes.
Post pandemic, India has been keeping a tighter vigil on the skies, shores and land routes around it to keep toxicity at bay. On May 8, alarm bells rang at the Kattupalli Port near Chennai following the seizure of a Chinese vessel, Hyundai Shanghai. Customs authorities on routine checking found a suspicious consignment on board the ship, which came from Shanghai. Sailing under a Cyprus flag, the Hyundai Shanghai was on its way to Karachi.
Risky voyage: Karachi Port was the destination of two ships carrying suspicious Chinese cargo which were seized by Indian authorities this year.
The consignment was shipped on April 18 by a Chinese firm, Chengdu Shichen Trading Company Ltd, to a Rawalpindi-based defence supplier, Rohail Enterprises. It was found to be 2,560kg of CS, which is a listed substance under the Wassenaar Arrangement as well. The Wassenaar Arrangement, of which India is a signatory, is an export control regime covering conventional arms as well as dual-use goods and technologies. The consignment, stored in 103 drums, was seized under the provisions of the Customs Act, 1962, and the Weapons of Mass Destruction and Delivery Systems (Prohibition of Unlawful Activities) Act, 2005.
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Officials told THE WEEK that inquiries have thrown up a trail of Rohail Enterprises supplying consignments to the Defence Science and Technology Organisation, known as DESTO, which is responsible for Pakistan’s defence research and development. The ocean bill of lading (legal document for shipping goods internationally), stamped by the shipper in Shanghai on April 18, says that “goods or packages on board should be discharged at the mentioned port of discharge” (Karachi). The document, seen by THE WEEK, described the consignment as Ortho-Chlorobenzylidene Malononitrile packed in 102 drums of 25kg each and 10kg packed in another drum.
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The security brass in Delhi says the seizure of CS in such a large quantity raises questions about its potential use by Pakistan. The suspicion that Pakistan has been amassing offensive chemicals with Chinese help, flouting international norms, has remained a thorn in bilateral relations.
Officials say the alleged complicity of China, which has invested heavily in China-Pakistan Economic Corridor projects in Balochistan, cannot be ruled out. Military experts are looking at the possibility of China covertly supplying the controlled entity to Pakistan to protect its own interests against the backdrop of the killing of five of its citizens who were working on CPEC projects. The Chinese were travelling from Islamabad to the Dasu dam site in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when they were attacked by Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan rebels.
Already, protests by civilians in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Gilgit Baltistan and Balochistan have led to stern action by the Pakistan military. Smruti S. Pattanaik, research fellow at the Delhi-based Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, said the Gwadar port complex in Balochistan province had become a restive area after protests by local people. The instability within Pakistan has risen further with the recent counterterrorism operations which have come nearly three years after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan.
“The spillover of arms and ammunition into Indian territory is a possibility that cannot be ruled out,” said D.K. Pathak, former director general of the Border Security Force. One of the concerns is the potential use of unmanned aerial vehicles for carrying chemicals across international borders. The UAV proliferation on the border, especially in Punjab, is a security nightmare. There is not yet a viable solution to tackle the menace of drones dropping weapons and drugs, as anti-drone technology is still being tested. With chemicals like the CS finding their way into Pakistan in large quantities, the possibility of them being used against the civilian population on the Indian side cannot be ruled out. “Future threats may not be kinetic wars, but the use of chemicals against protesters, dissidents and enemies,” said Pathak. The China-Pakistan defence collaboration amplifies this concern.
With the Russia-Ukraine war, there has been a natural stepping up of intelligence gathering to uncover clandestine activities by countries. Earlier this year, China was accused of supplying dual-use items and controlled substances to Pakistan in violation of international regulations. Indian agencies seized a Chinese consignment of CNC (computer numerical control) machinery from a Malta-flagged merchant vessel CMA CGM Attila, as it crossed Mumbai’s Nhava Sheva Port. Indian officials claimed that DESTO was the actual end-user of the consignment. The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, which seized the consignment, had asked the Defence Research and Development Organisation to inspect the equipment. The DRDO confirmed that the machinery belonged to the ultra high precision category and could be used in defence, aerospace and nuclear fields.
The interdiction of the cargo onboard Hyundai Shanghai has aggravated concerns about the large traffic passing by Indian shores and as scrutiny by port authorities goes up, the possibility of newer routes cannot be ruled out. Already, the suspicion of an alternate land route via Kashgar on the Karakoram highway between China and Pakistan for transfer of sensitive equipment and other controlled substances is turning out to be a major concern for Indian security agencies.