Who is Pieter Friedrich? K2 supporter associated with Toolkit, on the radar of Indian agencies since 2006

Greta Toolkit probe: Among the prominent figures mentioned in the ‘Toolkit’ shared by Greta Thunberg accidentally was one name that caught the eyes of Delhi Police-Special Cell. And that name was – Pieter Friedrich. Pieter’s name was mentioned in the ‘who to be followed section’ of Toolkit, created to influence the ongoing farmers’ protest in India. The Toolkit had a detailed action plan to amplify farmers’ protests by disseminating “fake news” about farm laws and creating a Twitter storm on Republic Day.

Today, the Delhi Police shared the details of its probe into the Toolkit. When asked about the role of Peiter Friedrich mentioned in the Toolkit, DCP Manishi Chandra said that the person was a proponent of Khalistan and had been on security agencies’ radar since late 2006.

He said the toolkit was a very carefully crafted document. “What hashtags to be made trend on a particular day, what action is to be taken, who is to be tagged, and who is to be followed — and if you follow the section as to what is to be followed, you will see certain names of established media houses, reputed fact checkers, some non-governmental organisations.”

“And then among those you will find a very incongruence looking name, and that very incongruence looking name is Pieter Friedrich. Pieter Friedrich has been on the radar of Indian security establishment since late 2006. When he was noticed being in the company one – Bhajan Singh Bhinder alias Iqbal Choudhury. He must have known this name…most of you have known this name at least those who have been following K2 (Kashmir-Khalistan) desk of ISI. So he (Bhajan Singh Binder) has been a very leading proponent of K2 desk,” Chandra said.

The DCP further said that Friedrich got associated with him (Bhajan SIngh Bhinder) and there is ample proof to this. Bhajan Singh Bhinder, he said, was a POI for the US-DEA for quite some time. “And as of now, he is running what we call as info operations — Psy-ops (Psychological operations),” the Delhi Police officer said.

The DCP also said that as to why the name of Pieter Friedrich found a place of relevance among those who were to be followed as resource persons was an answer which only the accused Disha and her colleagues can tell the police. “Whether it came from Mo Dhariwal or do they have direct connection with Peter Friedrich or BS Bhinder – that is part of the investigation,” he said.

During the press conference, Joint CP-Cyber Cell Prem Nath said that many screenshots of the toolkit were available on open source and were investigated. When probe, he said, was able to fetch enough information, a search warrant was obtained from court against Nikita Jacob, one of the editors of the toolkit google document.

“A team reached Mumbai and conducted searches at Nikita Jacob residence on February 11. She and her associates Shantanu and Disha had created the document. The email account created by Shantanu is the owner of this document and all others are its editors,” the Joint CP said. Disha has been arrested and an arrest warrant has been issued against Jacob and Shantanu.

The senior police officer further said that a woman named Puneet who is based in Canada connected these people to the Pro-Khalistani Poetic Justice Foundation. “On 11th January Nikita and Shantanu attended a Zoom meeting organised by Poetic Justice Foundation in which modalities were chalked out,” the officer said.