Pranab admits to chinks in armour

NEW DELHI: Pakistan’s ISI has penetrated India’s body armour, finding collaborators within the defence forces. In a candid confession, defence minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters on Monday that the ISI has increased its activities in India.

Mr Mukherjee, stressing that the presence of espionage rings in the Army was a matter of extreme concern, said that internal investigations were on to unravel the full ramifications of the spying network within the armed forces. “The ISI has moles in different organisations and has spread its network in Delhi and Kathmandu,” said the defence minister while addressing a press conference in New Delhi.

The minister’s statement about increased presence of ISI operatives in the capital is not surprising as many of the Pakistan High Commission staffers are suspected to be carrying out instructions from the ISI headquarters.

“It is a matter of concern that ISI is trying to infiltrate and subvert our armed forces,” the defence minister said while responding to the busting of two spying networks in the army over the last two days. What is more worrying for the government is the success of the ISI in enlisting services of people falling outside their ‘catchment area’.

Preliminary investigations indicate that the espionage networks may be inter-connected and they were found to spread from terrorism-hit Jammu and Kashmir to New Delhi to Kathmandu, the minister said. “The espionage rings might have started from Kashmir. Our military as well as civilian intelligence outfits and investigating agencies have been pressed into action to bust the spyrings and to find their kingpins,” the minister said. He added that the government would launch investigations into the matter and any spy found would be court-martialed.


The defence minister’s statement is sure to complicate the establishment’s plans to involve the Pakistani security agencies in the proposed joint anti-terror mechanism. On Sunday, the national security adviser M K Narayanan had expressed the hope that the latter would be part of the mechanism. The strategic community, however, is not convinced about the efficacy of this project, which seeks the cooperation of the ‘trouble-maker’.

The investigations into the Mumbai blasts have also established that the ISI had played a major role in the attack. Azam Cheema, the number three in the Lashkar-e-Taiba, had trained at least five of the Mumbai attackers at a camp run by him at Bahawalpur in Pakistan. While a Pakistani national Ehesanullah smuggled in the RDX used in the blasts, the police had recovered 26,000 riyals from another conspirator Faizal Shiekh. He has confessed to the police that he got the money from the ISI.

Meanwhile, the Indian Army on Monday said that there has been a sudden increase in infiltration-attempts in Jammu and Kashmir. An army spokesman said that the army was repelling attempts to cross the LoC.