New Delhi: The government has said that foreign intelligence agencies are making constant efforts to
set up bases in the country and influence people to form a
network of their agents.
"Government is aware of the efforts being made by foreign
intelligence agencies to operate in India," Minister of State
for Home Ajay Maken said here.
This admission by a Union Minister came nearly seven
months after Madhuri Gupta, an IFS-Group B officer posted in
the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, was arrested on the
charges of working for the Pakistani intelligence.
To counter efforts of hostile agencies, the government has
established a robust mechanism for exchange of information and
liaison with friendly nations on counter-terrorism through
Ministries of External Affairs and Home Affairs, the minister
said.
"Government is constantly monitoring activities of the
hostile agencies to subvert individuals and create agents of
influence in different institutions both in the public and
private domain and has been taking action to neutralise the
same wherever necessary," Maken said.
When asked about reports of moles in the administrative
set-up acting on behest of such agencies, he said "hostile
activity is being constantly monitored and countered by the
agencies concerned".
There have been several instances in the past where
India`s security agencies busted spy rings being run by
foreign intelligence agencies in the country.
In 2004, Joint Secretary at the Research and Analysis
Wing Major Rabinder Singh, who was allegedly working as a mole
of a foreign intelligence agency, gave a slip to RAW`s
counter-intelligence division, which had placed him under
surveillance, and fled the country along with his family via
Nepal.
In the 1990s, a senior IPS officer serving in the
Intelligence Bureau was suspected to have been working for a
woman diplomat then posted in the mission of a Western
country.
In the 1980s, another IPS officer, who served in RAW as a
director and headed the agency`s office in Chennai, was found
to have been working for a foreign country.
PTI
