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1] "OPEN SECRETS" : Confessions Of An Intelligence Mind The Indian Express, January 23, 2005, Sunday Confessions of an Intelligence mind Zail Singh was bugged, Govt smuggled arms inside Golden Temple, videotapes of Sangh meeting warned of Babri ?? ex IB Jt Director M K Dhar reveals ???Open Secrets?? RITU SARIN NEW DELHI, JANUARY 22: Certain truths are better protected when buried under permafrost. That??s what the author writes in his 519-page yet-to-be released book on the functioning of the country??s Intelligence Bureau (IB). And then Maloy Krishna Dhar, former Joint Director of the agency, goes on to do the exact opposite. His book titled Open Secrets (Manas, Rs 795), can best be described as the stringing together of startling secrets and a rare narration of why the IB is called the Government??s dirty tricks department. There are tales of skulduggery, of the IB working as a handmaiden to successive political regimes, of counter-intelligence operations ending in fiascos??controversial revelations on operations some of which Dhar himself calls ??????immoral and illegal.???? Asked about the propriety of an IB officer revealing what are official secrets, Dhar told The Sunday Express today: ??????I am prepared for any resultant action, even a case under the Official Secrets Act. People in the IB now may think I have revealed too much...But I feel the public needs to know how blatantly the IB has been used by political masters right from the time of Indira Gandhi.???? A sample of what Dhar has to offer, nine years after he retired: ??? As head of the IB??s Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau (SIB), Dhar was first assigned to rummage through old records and collect papers on Indira Gandhi and her family which the IB had prepared during the Janata Party regime. ??? He was then assigned to monitor the goings-on in the ??????parallel PMO???? which cronies of Sanjay Gandhi were running from 1, Akbar Road, and which was opposed to R K Dhawan. ??? After Sanjay Gandhi??s death, Dhar was asked to mount surveillance on Maneka Gandhi and her activities, he calls it a ??????detestable task.???? He admits to having ??????wired up???? a few of Maneka??s friends which produced ??????tonnes of appalling information.???? He says, along with another senior IB officer, he was ??????steamrolled???? into breaking into the offices of Surya magazine at night to steal the original copy of ???SHE?? the censored chapter of the autobiography of M O Mathai. ??? When Rajiv Gandhi was Prime Minister, he worked on the ??????Punjab peace policy???? guided by Satish Sharma (??????a big blunder????), Home Minister Buta Singh and police chief K P S Gill. In 1988, Bhindranwale??s nephew, Jasbir Singh Rode and three high priests of the Golden Temple were first released and then Dhar smuggled a cache of arms to Rode inside the Temple. The weapons were loaded in a special flight and carried to Rode??s den hidden in fruit baskets to enable him to fight terrorists. ??? Another Punjab operation, partly botched up, was the induction of a group of 50 ??????recruits???? and to arm them with Kalashnikov rifles to help Rode. But even as the modalities of shifting the weapons were being worked out, a DIG of police was attacked inside the shrine by Babbar Khalsa militants. Dhar was given a ??????safe passage???? out of Punjab along with the arms. He says he was later confronted by Buta Singh as to how 69 ??????unlicenced and unauthorised???? weapons were being supplied by the IB. ??? As head of the IB??s technical wing, Dhar says, he handled some interesting ??????coverages.???? Like a February 1992 meeting of the BJP/RSS attended by its top brass. ??????The meeting proved beyond doubt that they had drawn up the blueprint for the Hindutva assault in the coming months and choreographed the dance of destruction at Ayodhya in December 1992.???? He retrieved the tapes breaking into the venue after two days and adds that he had no doubt the ??????chilling contents???? were later shared with the Prime Minister and Home Minister. ??? He got another ??????techInt (technical intelligence) operational coup???? when he was asked to sweep the Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao??s office with bug-detecting devices in January 1992. He stumbled against a forgotten micro-recording monitoring machine, implanted inside the phone of an aide to the PM, planted by the IB during V P Singh??s regime. ??????The end products, I understand, were delivered to Rajiv Gandhi even when Chandrashekhar warmed the seat for the former.???? ??? Dhar chronicles how bugging devices were planted inside Rashtrapati Bhavan when the Prime Minister and Zail Singh had developed irreparable hostility. The device mounted somewhere on top of the PMO picked up telephone conversations from certain ??????treated phones???? inside Rashtrapati Bhavan. The recorded tapes were regularly made available to Rajiv Gandhi, which provided him with ??????deep insight???? into the machinations insides the walls of the Luytens Palace, he writes. In his three-decade long career in the IB, Dhar reveals he was variously described as ??????rogue officer???? or a ??????suspicious???? character. And what is interesting, is that as he cultivated politicians, terrorists and fixers alike he says he was offered several bribes??from money to plum postings and post-retirement positions. His book also reveals the curious friendships he developed along the way, from K M Govindacharya (there are several references to the RSS leader??s relationship with Uma Bharti) to R K Dhawan (the two were obviously closely identified), even industrialists like Dhirubhai Ambani. The book also has an entire section on the mismatch of intelligence gathering by the IB and the country??s external intelligence agency, RAW. For the first time also, it provides the IB??s viewpoint on handling the ISRO spy case, in which the agency had been much maligned. Dhar??s final thesis in the epilogue of the book: ??????I shall be happy if Open Secrets raises a national debate on the vital issue of making intelligence agencies accountable to the elected Parliament under appropriate Acts. After 57 years of Independence, a time has come to liberate the intelligence and investigation establishments from the stranglehold of petty and visionless politicians.???? ???NDA wanted me as a hatchet man, Gujarat rattled my bones?? * At several points, Dhar writes on how he was ideologically inclined towards the BJP and names K Govindacharya and Murli Manohar Joshi as his special friends. * When NDA came to power he was approached to accept a position in the PMO but declined the offer after two meetings with Bhure Lal. ??????His idea of the job that waited me involved digging out skeletons of corruption in the cupboards of the former Indira Congress leaders, including Rajiv Gandhi. I could never bring myself to accept the position of a hatchet man.???? * Videotaping of the Feb 1992 meeting of the BJP/ RSS ??????rattled my emotional attachment to the Hindutva protagonist organisations. The tapes disillusioned me. The contents proved beyond doubt that the high priests of hatred had helped the Sangh Parivar to adopt a strident Hindutva programme soon after the assassination of Indira Gandhi.???? * The recent ??????Gujarat pogrom rattled my bones. I wish there were some mad people like me to gather audio and video evidence of the scheme of minority annihilation by Narendra Modi... Anyways, history has the bad habit of re-running like a stuck film spool.???? ?? ENS ------------------------------------------------------------ A BACKGROUNDER The Indian Express, July 12, 1997, Saturday Perforce, enemies of the people Maloy Krishna Dhar For 12 years, beginning 1980, I have been visiting Tarn Taran, Patti, Sirhali, Panjwar, Manachahal, Chowk Mahita -- some of the names which had hit the headlines as the hubs of free Khalistan, where the writs of the Chandigarh and Delhi governments ran for few daylight hours. The rest of the areas were ruled by terrorist satraps like Avtar Singh Brahma, Manvir Chehru, Manochahal and Paramjit Panjwar, still regarded as folk heroes. The Sikhs, like the Jews, don't forget their history. In my job, I always travelled undercover, usually as a mediaperson. My profession had compelled me to stay aloof of the state machinery and establish rapport with the militant leaders. I was not a part of the killing machine. Ajit Singh Sandhu and his colleagues, some of them missionaries in uniform, accepted their assigned jobs as frontline soldiers. They were told to shoot first. They were assured by their bosses in Chandigarh and Delhi that they would be taken care of. The unholy war had to be won. Our political leaders, like their imperial masters, have been using the police and the administration for coercion in the name of preserving the unity and integrity of the country. Policemen are the most visible arm of the system, enforcing the political will. Our politicians do not require thinking policemen and discerning bureaucrats. The imperial jo hukum is still the order of the day. Why can't India opt for a modern policing system, instead of acquiring modern killing machines alone? Our policemen cannot be perpetually treated as enemies of the people. Punjab is not the only theatre where the system has been perverted. The festering insurgency in the Northeast stands testimony to our bankrupt policies. We have simply asked policemen to do firefighting. Our system has been sending out wrong signals, saying that violence alone can force Delhi to yield. Our system has not yet developed any yardstick of accountability for the political class. Their adventurism has generated several killing fields in the country and the neighbourhood (remember the IPKF?). The Northeast, the ravaged lands of Naxalbari, the Bihar plains and Andhra Pradesh bear testimony to their misdeeds. Everywhere, they press in the services of the forces to tackle the law and order problems arising out of their bankruptcy. The law is enforced and order is restored, at the cost of innocent lives. Ajit Singh Sandhu was one of those dedicated and inspired policemen who carried the cross of his political masters in the belief that he was protecting his country. The first-generation militants, most of them folk heroes, believed in Khalistan as a panacea. They took up arms and the police, as an instrument of the State, acted in defence of the system. Policemen were supposed to face terrorists as part of their professional duties. Their frontal and tactical engagements were well justified. But history bears testimony that hundreds of terrorists were not killed in frontal engagements and thousands of innocent youths were silently liquidated as part of `mass control measures'. Sandhu, who had carried out the orders of his superiors and political masters and secured Tarn Taran, thought he was above the law. Many brave and honest officers like him had committed themselves and made Punjab safe at a colossal human cost. The yagnas performed by the perfidious politicians required human blood, and the terrorists and policemen obliged them. However, immunity hits at the roots of our democratic system. Several Commissions later, the policemen still remain in political thrall. The politicians and their bureaucratic barnacles do not believe in the functioning of the policemen within the law. Policemen are asked to break the law in the name of protecting it. In the bargain, they protect the interests of politicians and jeopardise their own interests and the people's. We salute Ajit Singh Sandhu, a martyr to the corrupt system, but exhort the nation to look into the concept of comprehensive accountability, especially for the political class. Independent India requires an independent policing policy and cannot depend on the rotten imperial legacy. The author is a retired IB official who worked in Punjab http://expressindia.com/ie/daily/19970712/19350153.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2] PWG WATCH: TRS Functionaries Had Links With Naxalites: Report Newindpress.com/PTI, January 23, 2005, Sunday TRS functionaries had links with Naxalites: Report HYDERABAD: Amidst the stand off between ruling partners Congress and Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) in Andhra Pradesh over the Naxalite issue, the state police has come out with a report disclosing that several TRS functionaries had links with Naxalite organisations. In a report submitted to Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhar Reddy, the state intelligence department has revealed that over 40 TRS functionaries, holding different positions, had connections with extremist organisations in the past and some of them are still Naxalite sympathisers. Among the people's representatives who are either Naxal sympathisers or had worked with them in the past, according to the report, are TRS MLA K Eswar from Karimnagar district and the party's Adilabad district secretary Praveen, official sources said here on Sunday. Several TRS leaders holding elected posts in Panchayat Raj institutions including Zilla Parishad, Mandal Parishad and village Sarpanch's were found to have links with Maoist organisations, sources said quoting the intelligence report. http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEL20050123002727&Page=L&Title=B+R+E+A+K+I+N+G++++N+E+W+S&Topic=0& =---------------------------------------------------------- The Hindu, January 23, 2005, Sunday DGP rules out probe into encounters By Our Staff Reporter ANANTAPUR, JAN. 22. The Director-General of Police, Swaranjit Sen, has ruled out the possibility of probing into encounters between the police and naxalites and booking cases against the police officers and men involved in such encounters. He has asserted that the police had never violated law and had been acting as per the laws laid down. All the encounters had been genuine and there was no scope for any doubt. In response to a question whether action would be taken against the policemen involved in encounters as demanded by the Maoists, the DGP shot back at a press conference here today: "You want it." Naxalites had been committing cold-blooded murders and it was they who had been violating the law. "Let us talk about violation of law by them first. We can discuss the issue of action against police later," he noted. Asked whether he was hopeful of revival of the talks with naxalite groups, the DGP said such decisions would be taken by the Government. The police role was only to maintain law and order and to prevent crime. On the Maoist allegations that the police had been influencing the Government decision against talks, Mr. Sen said there was no such possibility. The police were only an arm of the Government and it would act as per the wishes of the Government. "The Government wants us to act as per the law, be it public or anybody else," he stated. Differences The DGP brushed aside reports about the differences with the Chief Minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, and the Home Minister, K. Jana Reddy, and said: "I don't know from where media get such information." On reports that a certain Minister had complained to the Chief Minister against him, the DGP said that anybody could express one's opinion in a democracy. But, he did not know the extent of truth in such `complaints'. He cited the unification of Maoist groups and their assumption that they had become an invincible force, their plan to create an impression that the police had become weak after the change of guard (DGP) by resorting to destructive activities and their (naxalites') assessment that police might not react amply to their acts of violence during the peace process as reasons for the spurt in violence. Police role The decision to go or not to go for talks again by the Government was not a consideration for police role in maintaining law and order. "It does not matter. Enforcing law is our main consideration," the DGP clarified. Earlier, speaking after inaugurating the police station building at Roddam, Mr. Sen said the Maoist ideology was not relevant to India. http://www.hindu.com/2005/01/23/stories/2005012303220600.htm |
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