Why Indian intelligence doesn’t work too well in Pakistan

Ask an Indian intelligence official about the challenge involved in tracking Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives inside Pakistan and they all give the same answer . Most officers who have served in Pakistan say that India has the capability to hit the terror group in Pakistan, but the government doesn’t allow such covert actions. “We don’t do covert operations like the CIA, MI6 and Mossad. This doesn’t mean that we don’t have the capability. Given a chance, we could prove equal to all these agencies,” says a former officer.

But sources in the R&AW , India’s external agency, say India lacks both political will and the capability to carry out a hit inside Pakistan. “We do not have the mandate to do what Mossad does. Our charter does not include the job of getting (or assassinating) people from other countries. If such political will is there, the agency would be able to do it,” says a senior RAW official.

In fact, over the past two decades the agency has even lost some of its capability for covert operations abroad. “During the 1980s, the agency used to have two Counter Intelligence Teams (CITs) in Pakistan: one targeting the country and the other targeting Khalistani militant infrastructure. However, during Prime Minister I K Gujral’s time, both these teams were dismantled and the extensive human intelligence network in Pakistan was scaled down,” says another official. “Done purely on moral grounds, this severely affected our capability. That structure h a s a s yet not been restored as the political class here believes that covert operations spoil bilateral relations,” he adds.

The agency, sources say, now conducts operations primarily by paying money to local operatives in Pakistan instead of its own agents. But such groups can’t hit out at ISI-protected figures like Hafiz Saeed and Dawood Ibrahim.

Another former officer , who has spent a considerable time studying these outfits, attributes it to the fundamental difference between India and Pakistan in dealing with espionage. “It takes a great deal of money and time to cultivate sources in foreign soil. We don’t have either in plenty, unlike countries in the West. Pakistan’s ISI is better off in this as the state sponsors terrorism ,” he says.

In order to surmount the challenges on the ground, most intelligence officers believe that they need better equipment for surveillance as well as the go-ahead for covert tactics. “The direction finders we used before would give us kilometre per square information about somebody we wanted to track. We knew he was there somewhere but couldn’t pinpoint his location. Now, of course, we have better technology . But if you pit it against what the Americans use, there is a lot of catching up to do. However, even with smarter technology we cannot do much unless our government allows us to do covert operations. You will see the difference then.”