Breakdown of in-house surveillance

IN 1987, the man now believed to have been the Central Intelligence Agency's top mole in the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) walked into his boss' office with a proposal. Rabinder Singh, then a junior officer, wanted to make a deal.

A year earlier, RAW had set up a new organisation called Counter-Intelligence Team `J' (CIT `J'), a super-secret covert group intended to target Khalistan terrorist groups, much like CIT `X', which trains agents for covert operations in Pakistan. Rabinder Singh had a volunteer who, in return for his cooperation, was demanding the release of two prisoners held on murder and trans-border trafficking charges. A little investigation led Rabinder Singh's boss to two conclusions: the officer's deal involved not a little personal greed, and his recruit was just as likely to betray CIT `J' as work for it.

The end result? Nothing. Repeated adverse comments by Rabinder Singh's superiors did not halt his promotion through RAW's ranks nor deny him sought-after overseas postings. At the heart of the snowballing scandal around Rabinder Singh's defection is the breakdown of RAW's in-house surveillance of its own staff, carried out by the Counter-Intelligence Security (CIS) Division - popularly known as "mole-watchers". Each time the CIS Division has sought to raise security standards, RAW staff have revolted.

In 1980, RAW personnel actually went on strike against CIS Division surveillance, claiming it was unnecessary harassment. A Delhi Police officer attached to the CIS Division was actually held hostage in his room, while RAW staffers took out a protest procession. Mercifully for the organisation, then RAW chief, N.S. Santook, held firm, and ensured that the strikers were sacked under provisions allowing the President of India to terminate summarily the services of government employees. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi subsequently introduced new regulations which prohibited strikes in sensitive organisations such as RAW and the Intelligence Bureau.

Matters again came to a head in 1985-1986. Intelligence Bureau counter-intelligence personnel monitoring a U.S. diplomat in Chennai discovered that a RAW field officer had been passing on sensitive information to the CIA. The officer was lured to New Delhi by CIS Division staff, who subsequently obtained a full confession. Although the officer spent a year in Tihar Jail in New Delhi, officials finally decided against prosecution, believing that secrets relating to India's operations in Sri Lanka could be exposed.

It did not escape notice that the Intelligence Bureau had detected the officer's contacts, not RAW, which simply did not have an adequate mechanism in place. More worrying, the handling officer, the U.S. diplomat, disappeared just a day before the Indian officer's arrest. CIS Division personnel called for a full-scale mole-hunt, albeit to no avail. Random checks of officers of all ranks were also to have been carried out at RAW's headquarters in New Delhi and at major field stations. Special photocopiers, which would record the document as well as the user, were to have been brought in.

By 1999, however, most of these bare-bones procedures had become dysfunctional. In Rabinder Singh's case, even basic counter-intelligence screening could have detected treachery at several stages. He was known to be in severe financial need after 1992-1993, following a serious automobile accident involving his daughter. Yet, his wife spent up to six months a year abroad, entertained lavishly, and lived in a house in an upmarket New Delhi neighbourhood with a market rent of over Rs.75,000 a month, supposedly gifted by a relative.

Rabinder Singh's success was the consequence of resistance at senior levels of RAW to the post-1986 counter-intelligence regime, which was steadily diluted through the 1990s. The CIS Division's plans to broaden checks were shelved by officers who believed their rank and status automatically exempted them from reasonable suspicion.

Some within the CIS Division believe that RAW's top echelons have good reason not to want a high degree of surveillance. In the early 1990s, South African President Nelson Mandela visited New Delhi. The government of Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao wished to make a goodwill donation to the African National Congress, and tasked RAW to undertake the transfer. RAW made the payment from its in-house funds, without asking for reimbursement from the Cabinet Secretariat. It later turned out that successive RAW chiefs had been holding cash from cover funds, while issuing certificates of utilisation to the Cabinet Secretariat. At the time, this covert fund-within-a-fund amounted to almost $800,000.