Already faced with the declension and debacle in Afghanistan, the Bharati (aka Indian) spy agencies are now confronted with another gargantuan failure of intelligence in Pakistan. The spy matter is serious for Bharat because it involves “penetration” into the highly secretive and diabolical Bharati agency called RAW (Research and Analysis Wing). RAW is simply not a data gathering service. It carries on sabotage and murder. It was RAW that was formed in 1969 with a specific purpose of creating trouble in Pakistan. More than 80,000 Hindus were recruited and sent as terror groups from 1965-1971. A huge propaganda campaign was orchestrated and then it was finally given to RAW in 1969.
The Gupta affair involves the head of RAW in Islamabad. This was the link and synchronization point to the “Consulates” in Afghanistan which coordinated mercenaries and sent terror groups into Pakistan. Solid evidence of Bharati involvement in Balochistan was not only gathered from the Bharati Embassy Islamabad, it was given to foreign capitals–which helped changed the American and British attitude against Bharat. The solid evidence presented helped change the tide in Pakistan’s favor. While the world was clamoring for “evidence” of Bharati involvement in Balochistan–the source of the evidence could not presented to the media–for obvious reasons.
Ms. Gupta had ample opportunity to plant listening devices and feed information into the RAW system. Stories planted in the Urdu press were translated into Hindi and English to throw off the Bharat and get RAW into chasing ghosts in cul de sacs.
Based on press reports it is obvious that Ms. Gupta had access to other parts of the Embassy, specially since she had “good relations” with the head of RAW.
Ms. Gupta got caught after two years not because of any operation by the Bharatis, but because of a stray email. It it had been a Bharati sting operation, they would have removed her from the premises quickly. It is obvious that Ms Gupta was not alone in this operation. Press reports indicate and mention a network that spans Malaysia, Iraq and perhaps other countries. If Ms. Gupta was seduced in Kuala Lumpur and Iraq, then her spy carrier spanned a period longer than two years–and perhaps 5 or 6 years. She has caused incalculable damage to RAW–which will have to go through a purging exercise–never good for any organization’s morale. If there is a network then the consequences are dire.
The damage control from Bharat has already started. “She was a low level officer”, “she did not have access to sensitive material’ is the mantra from the incompetent agencies that were finally able to arrest her because of a chance email that Mr. Gupta sent to her benefactors. To hide the embarrassment there is the fiction of a counter-operation.
Time magazine has recently published an article which bases some of the information on an article written by Cyril Media of Dawn.com. While Dawn is a not a credible source, it does present a side of the story which is usually complaint to Washington and obsequious towards Delhi.
“At 53, she was bored, alone and attractive. Single, but definitely one step ahead to mingle.” That’s how the man who led the operation to bust Madhuri Gupta, the first Indian diplomat to be found spying for Pakistan, described her. For most of her two years in espionage, Gupta was a lone-wolf, conducting a classic spy operation from her base in Islamabad. Old-school “dead drops,” in which she passed off information without even meeting her Pakistani handlers, were her signature style. Yet it was a silly indiscretion — sending e-mails to her spy bosses from her office computer — that finally led to her arrest.
Gupta has not exactly been near the center of Indian decision-making, posted as a second secretary in the media section of India’s high commission in Pakistan’s capital, where her job had been to provide English and Hindi summaries of Pakistan’s Urdu-language newspapers. On April 22, the 53-year-old was summoned back to New Delhi ostensibly to help colleagues prepare for the ongoing South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) summit in Bhutan. After landing at Indira Gandhi International Airport, she was whisked away by officials of the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau (IB), India’s internal intelligence agency, straight to an interrogation chamber in an undisclosed location. Twenty-four hours later, she was handed over to Delhi police, charged with treason and accessing confidential documents under India’s Official Secrets Act.
“Her spy game was up the moment a Joint Secretary — an IB officer — inside the Islamabad mission suspected her around October 2009 and reported back,” a high-level IB case officer in New Delhi told TIME. The IB launched a massive counter-intelligence operation, in which even its counterparts in the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), the country’s external intelligence agency, were kept out of the loop.
Over the next six months, Gupta’s every step was monitored. She was found to be taking undue interest in informal discussions among the senior embassy officials regarding important policy matters, including India’s strategic plans in Afghanistan and resuming a dialogue with Pakistan. [...]
Pakistani authorities refused to comment on the case, but analysts in Islamabad saw her arrest as an attempt to scupper upcoming planned talks between India’s and Pakistan’s prime ministers. “The timing was supposed to send a signal that India is not ready to talk to Pakistan yet,” said Cyril Almeida, an editor and analyst at Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper. “India has not moved beyond its post-Mumbai [the terror attack which Indian and Western authorities say originated in Pakistan] phase. It is not looking for talks with Pakistan any time soon.”
India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was scheduled to meet his Pakistani counterpart, Yousuf Raza Gilani, this week, although the purpose of such talks is contested. After breaking off all dialogue with Pakistan after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, Indian officials had suggested a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the SAARC summit to discuss a long-running water dispute, but Pakistan has made clear that it wants a formal, open-ended peace talks. As Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told the India’s CNN-IBN network on Tuesday, “We need to go beyond a handshake.”
Asked whether the two prime ministers would still hold talks in Bhutan this week, Pakistan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Malik Amad Khan told TIME, “Maybe, maybe not, but that’s totally independent of [the spying] allegations.”
Almeida notes that espionage efforts to “turn” the other country’s diplomats are par for the course between the long-time rivals, “But given [Gupta's] relatively junior position it is unlikely that she would have had access to sensitive documents, unless there was a real breakdown internally.”
Indian government sources say Gupta had been spying for Pakistan since September 2008. “We have reasons to believe that she was not recruited inside Pakistan,” says a senior officer in RAW. “Possibly she was picked up and nurtured either in Baghdad or Kuala Lumpur where she was posted earlier.” The agency also says this could have been a reason why she was keen for a Pakistan posting — usually a last choice among Indian diplomats and intelligence officials.
Vishnu Prakash, a spokesman for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, says that Gupta “is co-operating with the investigations and inquiries.” Sources told TIME that she has told interrogators that she spied for Pakistan to settle scores with senior Indian diplomats who mistreated her during her early career. She has also reportedly confessed that a prominent Pakistani journalist put her in touch with Pakistani intelligence officers.
Her bank account records are being scanned, her official computer and personal laptop have been brought back to Delhi for analysis, and her personal relationship with a Pakistani intelligence officer, identified thus far only as “Rana,” is being investigated. Gupta claims she was romantically involved with “Rana,” but she was also being blackmailed by him into sharing information. Gupta now faces dismissal from service, an in-camera trial and a maximum of 10 years of rigorous imprisonment.
The IB investigator who spoke to TIME says the only sensitive material that Gupta managed to pass on to Pakistan concerned “partial information on [India's] strategic plans in Afghanistan.” That has come as a relief to Delhi, though investigators are still checking whether Gupta was used to plant bugs in the Indian mission in Islamabad.
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