India's intelligence in crisis after double agent disclosure

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
New Delhi, May 29, IRNA -- India`s external intelligence service has 
been rocked by revelations that Ravinder Singh, a joint secretary- 
level officer of the country suspected of having defected to the 
United States, may have been a double agent. 
According to the Hindu, a New Delhi-based English daily, although 
Singh had no access to material of high sensitivity since he was 
posted in Western Indian state of Punjab during the early 1980s, he 
is believed to have used his contacts within the Research and Analysis
Wing to gather classified data and assessments. 
Singh is believed to have fled India in recent weeks, while faced 
with prosecution for espionage. Media reports claim he has joined his 
wife and children, who have lived in the US for several years. 
No official confirmation has been forthcoming, but R&AW sources 
admitted that their counter-intelligence services had obtained 
evidence that Singh had been illegally copying documents to be passed 
on to a suspected CIA contact. 
The evidence was procured through covert video and telephone 
surveillance. 
An Amritsar resident from an affluent Jat Sikh landed family, 
Singh had served in the Indian army as a major before joining the 
R&AW. He served with distinction in Amritsar during Operation 
Bluestar. 
Soon after, he again attracted the attention of his superiors by 
procuring classified US government documentation. 
Singh`s source seems to have been one of his relatives, a U.S. 
citizen who has worked for over two decades with the US Agency for 
International Development, a donor organization Indian intelligence 
has suspected is a front for the CIA. 
Singh`s relative is alleged to have visited India regularly on 
official work, sometimes staying at his residence. This relationship, 
R&AW investigators claim, enabled Singh to pass on documents with 
only a minimal risk of exposure. 
Newspaper reports have suggested that Singh`s operations were 
detected because of an inadvertent reference to him made in casual 
conversation by the CIA`s station chief for India. 
However, sources familiar with the R&AW investigation told The 
Hindu that this was not in fact the case. 
Whatever the truth, Singh`s energetic use of his office 
photocopier remained undetected for several years. Some in R&AW, 
however, began expressing disquiet after Singh began asking colleagues
for information he did not require. 
Some of the suspicion focussed on his financial circumstances. In 
1992-1993, sources say, Singh`s daughter was left almost paralyzed 
after a serious road accident. 
Using the offices of then-minister of state for external affairs, 
R.L. Bhatia, Singh attempted to secure a posting to Washington DC. 
The request was shot down. "My interest in the whole affair was 
purely compassionate," Bhatia said. "Singh said he needed a lot of 
money to pay for his daughter`s treatment, and that the Washington 
posting would help." 
No official explanation has been offered as to why Singh was not 
immediately interrogated after evidence of his espionage activities 
was obtained. In two earlier cases, video and photographic evidence 
led to double agents confessing their crimes. 
A top Intelligence Bureau officer was forced to admit to having 
contact with a woman officer posted in the US Embassy in New Delhi 
after an intelligence sweep detected the diplomat using a mobile 
phone he had purchased for her. 
Intelligence Bureau watchers acting on the orders of the 
organization`s then-boss, Arun Bhagat, subsequently filmed the IB 
officer spending time with the woman at several locations, including 
a resort on the New Delhi-Jaipur highway. 
Earlier, R&AW counter-intelligence used video evidence to compel 
a field officer to admit that he had passed on sensitive information 
to the CIA through 1985-1986. The officer at first denied any wrong- 
doing. 
However, R&AW was able to confront him with footage showing him 
making contact with a US national on a beach in Chennai, and at a 
resort in Kerala. 
After this affair, R&AW tightened up its in-house surveillance 
procedures. However, officers at and above the rank of joint 
secretary were not generally searched while leaving the 
organization`s headquarters at Lodhi Road in New Delhi - a loophole 
exploited by Singh. 
Some experts say they are increasingly concerned over the 
security risks posed by the growing numbers of children of officers 
holding sensitive posts who are now working or studying abroad. 
Efforts to compromise Indian intelligence personnel through this 
route date back several decades. 
In the early 1980s, the son of the then-R&AW chief left the US 
after efforts were made to approach the spy-chief through him. 
The young man had been denied a visa extension, and was offered 
its renewal in return for his cooperation with US` intelligence 
services. 
"Not all," says a senior R&AW officer, "would respond with 
such probity." 
Top intelligence officials also believe that the scandal points to
the danger of growing and sometimes indiscriminate contact between 
Indian and foreign intelligence services - often carried out under the
cover of counter-terrorism work. 
Under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, R&AW alone was authorized to 
make contact with foreign intelligence services. These restraints, 
however, have loosened in recent years, and top people in the National
Democratic Alliance Government sometimes met the heads of 
international intelligence services, particularly those of Israel and 
the US. 
Heads are likely to roll within R&AW for the failure to stop Singh
from leaving India. Notably, sources in the Delhi Police say no 
instructions to stop the officer from leaving the country were issued 
to them. 
Opinion within R&AW seems to have been divided on the course of 
action that needed to be taken against him. Singh took advantage of 
this feud and disappeared. Past affairs of this kind provoked both the
US and India to expel intelligence personnel. 
This time around, Singh`s defection could also have damaging 
consequences for India-US relations. 
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