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A RAW deal for India
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| 18 May 2005 |
India's covert overseas intelligence-gathering agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), is still reeling under the embarrassing defection of a senior operative to the US last year with the help of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). This was despite the fact that the operative was under close surveillance.
P K Hormis Tharakan, the newly appointed head of RAW, faces the unenviable task of determining how many 'moles' Rabinder Singh may have recruited in the agency and other sensitive departments before fleeing to the US via neighbouring Nepal, allegedly on US travel papers, in early May 2004. This national security failure under the previous Hindu nationalist-led government is attributed to in-fighting in the highly politicised RAW and the lack of co-ordination between it and the Intelligence Bureau (IB), the domestic security agency that is in charge of counterintelligence matters.
The embarrassed government has closed Singh's file by dismissing him from service after invoking a special constitutional provision, quietly putting the lid on the scandal. But security analysts said such punishment was "illusory". It merely entailed forfeiture of Singh's meagre pension, while blocking further inquiry into his activities, his foreign accomplices and what long-term damage he may have caused the intelligence-gathering agency.
RAW sources said Singh, a former army major who joined the agency in 1978, was not handling sensitive intelligence matters that could be of interest to the US. His only use was as a recruiter. This worrisome assessment, which is generating tension within the agency, is bolstered by the fact that until three weeks after his deflection, senior RAW officials did not even inform the government that he had left Nepal's capital, Kathmandu, reportedly on travel documents provided by the CIA.
At the centre of Singh's defection is the breakdown of RAW's in-house surveillance of its own staff, conducted by the Counter-Intelligence Security (CIS) division, popularly known as 'mole watchers'. Ironically, each time the CIS division has sought to raise security standards, RAW staff have revolted.
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