Espionage charges: New Delhi pulls out three undercover agents

The officials belonging to RAW, were tasked to stoke unrest in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: A week after Pakistan busted a network of Indian spies working under diplomatic cover, New Delhi pulled out three of its officials posted in the country.

Those who were withdrawn from the Indian High Commission include Anurag Singh, Vijay Kumar Verma and Madhavan Nanda Kumar. The said officials, according to the foreign office, were members of RAW and their main purpose was to create trouble in Pakistan.



Anurag Singh was officially designated as secretary commercial. He was involved in creating controversies related to Pak-China trade as well as CPEC by reaching out to business communities in the country. He was also tasked with creating unrest in Gilgit-Baltistan.

Working as a staff member in the Indian High Commission, Vijay was also identified as a RAW official, whose area of focus was Azad Jammu and Kashmir. His task was to create a propaganda network to malign the right to self-determination in Indian Occupied Kashmir, official documents had earlier confirmed. Madhavan was focused on spying on Balochistan-related matters.

India pulled out these officials after Pakistan last week claimed that it unearthed a network of Indian spies working under diplomatic cover for espionage and facilitating terrorist attacks in the country.

“Three of the eight officials have been sent back to India,” a diplomatic source confirmed to The Express Tribune. The fate of the remaining five, who were also identified as part of the Indian spying network, has yet to be decided.

The decision of Indian government to withdraw the named officials was inevitable after their true identity was leaked to the media. Pakistan, although termed those officials as threat to the national security, has not yet declared them as persona non grata.

A Pakistani official pointed out that India was now left with no other option but to pull these officials out of Islamabad.



The latest spat started after Indian police detained a staff member of Pakistan’s High Commission in New Delhi for questioning over espionage charges on October 27. Mahmood Akhtar, who was working as a visa officer at the Pakistani High Commission, was later expelled from India.

However, India using his statement that Delhi Police extracted from him through “coercive methods” implicated other Pakistani staffers.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 9^th, 2016.