The government has said that foreign intelligence agencies are making constant efforts to set up bases in the country.
“Government is aware of the efforts being made by foreign intelligence agencies to operate in India,” minister of state for home Ajay Maken 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,” Mr Maken told Parliament.
To counter efforts of hostile agencies, 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, he said. On reports of moles in the administrative set-up acting on behest of such agencies, Mr Maken 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. One such case is of Madhuri Gupta, an IFS-Group B officer posted in the Indian high commission in Islamabad, who was arrested on the charges of working for the Pakistani intelligence some months back. 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.