Is Madhuri Gupta a Double Agent?
By Riaz Haq
CA
Coming just days before the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) Summit in Bhutan, the arrest of Indian diplomat Madhuri Gupta on charges of spying for Pakistan is raising many serious questions among analysts and commentators.
On April 22, the 53-year-old Gupta was asked to return to New Delhi ostensibly to help prepare for the SAARC Summit in Bhutan, according to a report in Time magazine. After landing at Indira Gandhi International Airport, she was taken away by the Indian Intelligence Bureau (IB) officials for interrogation to 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, and passing sensitive information on to ISI, the Pakistani intelligence agency.
Indian news agency PTI is reporting that the head of India's intelligence agency RAW ( Research and Analysis Wing) in Islamabad is also being investigated. Her alleged visit to the Indian side of the LoC in disputed Kashmir region are among her suspicious activities being investigated by Indian authorities.
Some of the probing questions being asked relate to the timing of the arrest just prior to the SAARC Summit, the level of access a low-level diplomat like Gupta had to India's classified information, the role and the motivations of India's Intelligence Bureau (IB) officials, and Gupta's possible role as a double agent working simultaneously for both India's RAW and Pakistan's ISI. Other questions include as to why was India's intelligence agency RAW kept out of the loop? Is the Indian IB attempting to delay, or even scuttle, the resumption of India-Pakistan composite dialog? Did Gupta run afoul of her Indian handlers that led to her outing and arrest?
S.M. Mushrif, former Police Chief of Maharashtra and the author of "Who Killed Karkare?", believes that the Indian Intelligence Bureau (IB) is up to its neck in conspiring with the extreme Hindutva groups against Indian Muslims and creating trouble between India and Pakistan.
The power establishment that really runs the affairs of India (Mushrif says it is not Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh or Rahul Gandhi) does not want to expose the rabidly anti-Muslim Hindutva terrorists, and by extension, see peace between India and Pakistan.
The Times of India hints at the possibility of Gupta being double agent working for both Indian and Pakistani spy agencies. In a piece titled "Spy Games", the Times argues that there are many questions that need to be answered by the officials in the Gupta espionage case. It says: "For those pressing charges against Gupta, the questions that need to be probed are: When and how was Gupta contacted by Pakistani agents? Was she allowed access to information above her clearance level? How long did it take for her activities to be noticed on the Indian side? And perhaps most importantly, what was her motivation for becoming a double agent? Finding the answers to these questions could go some way towards revealing the lacunae in our security protocols abroad and preventing recurrences of such breaches."
Some of the Indian analysts are probably correct in their assessment that at least a part of the Pakistani "establishment" does not want serious progress in talks with India. But I also believe there is a similar anti-Pakistan establishment in India that wants to thwart any possibility of peace with Pakistan.
I often hear references to India's "shadowy security establishment" and "agencies" by Indian columnists like Siddarth Varadarajan in The Hindu newspaper, and allegations against "some vested interests in militants and agencies" by politicians like Mehbooba Mufti after the Srinagar hotel attack earlier this year.
Espionage cases like this need to be thoroughly investigated. However, I do not think it's likely that the public will ever learn the full truth in this case.
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