Foreign Intelligence Activities in India: News

[ssg_slayer]

Hi guys,
I am opening a thread which would deal with foreign intelligence activities in India to tarnish India's image and slower the growth of India's economy. and also which pose a threat to India's internal security. This would be an archive for educational purpose as well.

Please post news related to such here thanks!

 

[ssg_slayer]

Railway employee working for Pakistan's ISI arrested in Punjab
Acting on a tip-off received from intelligence agencies, the Ajnala police in Punjab have arrested a railway employee, allegedly working as a spy for Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).


Acting on a tip-off received from intelligence agencies, the Ajnala police in Punjab have arrested a railway employee, allegedly working as a spy for Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

The accused has been identified as Ramkesh Meena and was working as a class IV employee with Indian Railways, posted at Atari railway station.

Senior Superintendent of Police (Rural) Vikramjeet Singh Duggal said the police have recovered photographs and videos of BSF officials, border installations, and the Samjhauta Express from the accused.

Interrogation has revealed that Ramkesh was filming the Atari railway station, Samjhauta Express train. He took photographs of BSF officers and meetings of the intelligence wings.

Police sources said the accused would send photos and videos to his Pakistan-based handlers. He had also filmed some of BSF posts.

Cyber experts are trying to retrieve data from his mobile phone to find out more.

A case has been registered against the accused in Gharinda police station. Further investigation is ongoing in the matter.

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/punjab-railway-employee-isi-1572105-2019-07-22


PS: They have started keeping eye on India's transport as well

 

[ssg_slayer]

Former CIA operative Robert Crowley, in telephone interviews with journalist Gregory Douglas, claimed that the US Central Intelligence Agency was responsible for “eliminating” both Bhabha and Shastri. The transcripts of these conversations were published in a book titled Conversations with the Crow.

Right-to-information (RTI) activist Chetan Kothari filed a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) in Bombay High Court asking the government to constitute a special investigative team to probe the mysterious deaths of nuclear scientists and engineers between 2010 and 2014. A large number of these deaths have been categorized as “unexplained.”

In 2013, two chief engineers assigned to India’s first nuclear-powered submarine INS Arihant, K K Josh and Abhish Shivam, were found lying on railway tracks by workers. Although saved from being run over by a train, they were found to be already dead. Relatives said that no visible signs of injury were apparent, an assertion backe up by the police. It was suggested that they might have been killed elsewhere, perhaps poisoned, before being put on the tracks to make their deaths appear accidental or as the result of suicides.

The Ministry of Defense and the media have dismissively described the incident as a routine accident, and further investigations have been ruled out. Only ordinary police were assigned to look into the case, which was deemed inconclusive.

The petition to Bombay High Court states, “In any other country, the murder of two engineers connected to a crucial strategic program would have created a media storm. When nuclear scientist Lokanathan Mahalingam’s body turned up in June of 2009, it was palmed off as a suicide and largely ignored by the Indian media.”

https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/07/opinion/indias-vanishing-nuclear-scientists/

 

[B0seRaoMenonModi]

Does your media (most of which) that's owned by foreigners count?

 

[ssg_slayer]

Does your media (most of which) that's owned by foreigners count?

as in?
...........................................................

 

[ssg_slayer]

Honey trapping job? Pakistan’s ‘military owned’ media house looks for ‘females’ to ‘attract and communicate’ on Social Media

There are two aspects of this job posting that are interesting.

1. That Pakistani Army owns a media house
2. They want a ‘female’ Social Media Specialist to ‘attract and interact’ with ‘targeted virtual communities’ and ‘network users’.

While the rest of the requirements are rather mundane, it is intriguing that a “media company” owned by the Pakistan Military in conducting this exercise.

Firstly, it is hilarious in itself that a media company would be owned by an Army. The Pakistan Army seems to indulge in all activities other than soldiering for their nation. The Army in Pakistan has massive commercial interests ranging in billions of dollars, from running media houses to manufacturing breakfast cereal.

Secondly, considering Pakistan’s history in indulging in ‘honey-trapping’, the job opening posted by the university for a military-run media house becomes even more significant. The keywords used in the job opening appear to fit the bill for the same.

Honey-trapping in an enemy exercise where the enemy nation tries to lure Army officers with catfish accounts or female accounts on social media, or otherwise, into a relationship. Thereafter, they subtly proceed to extract sensitive information that can then be used by the enemy nation against the target nation.

Recently, Army Jawan Ravinder Kumar Jadav was arrested by the police for leaking sensitive information to ISI. He was allegedly honey-trapped by a woman who posed as a captain in the nursing corps of Indian Army. The woman was suspected to be an agent of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency and had reportedly honey-trapped at least two personnel and an army aspirant in the last 15 months.

The investigation had revealed that this woman had approached the men she trapped on Facebook through fake profiles. The suspected ISI agent used Indian numbers for WhatsApp through which she interacted with the three men.

Recently, the Indian Army had identified 100 men who they suspected had already been compromised and had passed on sensitive information to ISI after getting honey-trapped. These men were put under intense surveillance.

The Army believes there is a pro-active enemy conspiracy to use social media to profile, segregate and trap personnel in uniform and seek details which compromise national security.

Recently, Army Chief General Bipin Rawat had instructed Army personnel to exit WhatsApp groups. In view of the recent reports of a woman linked to Pakistan’s ISI agency luring and honey-trapping Army personnel, the Army has brought in measures to regulate the use of social media.

While ISI and the Pakistan Army indulges in regular propaganda, this job posting on the website of the Fatima Jinnah Women University, which is funded by the Punjab Government (Pakistan) might just be another attempt at recruiting women for honey-trapping Indian officers.

https://www.opindia.com/2019/08/hon...s-to-attract-and-communicate-on-social-media/

sala koi mujhe trap karey mein mazey le kar ulta trap kardu

 

[ssg_slayer]

Pakistani ISI plans pumping 2b INR by 2019
https://www.weeklyblitz.net/news/pakistani-isi-plans-pumping-2b-inr-by-2019/

Anand Sharma


Unfortunately, the issue of fake Indian currency is a huge problem that’s been growing in recent years. Counterfeiters are becoming so clever and the newest notes are made so well, it’s difficult to identify them.


Fake Indian Currency Note (FICN) is the official term for counterfeit notes in the Indian economy. Estimates vary as to how many fake notes are in circulation. A study completed by the National Investigation Agency in partnership with the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) stated that the value is Indian rupees equivalent to $4 billion.


Fake notes are even dispensed from ATM machines at banks in India, particularly higher denomination notes.


The Indian government has been putting a lot of effort into addressing the issue of fake currency, including changing the design of notes to make them harder to copy and implementing a surprise overnight demonetization of existing 500 and 1,000 rupee notes.


On November 8, 2016, the Indian government declared that all existing 500 rupee and 1,000 rupee notes would cease to be legal tender from midnight. The 500 rupee notes have been replaced by new notes with a different design, and brand new 2,000 rupee notes have been introduced for the first time.


However, it didn’t reduce the problem of fake currency. Only three months after the newly minted 2,000 rupee note was introduced in India, multiple counterfeit copies of it were found and confiscated. There were even instances of fake notes being issued in the name of the “Children’s Bank of India” and dispensed from ATMs.


The Reserve Bank of India’s 2017-18 Annual Report, which was released in August 2018, also indicated that the new currency notes aren’t necessarily more secure or less prone to counterfeit. There was a 154 percent increase in the number of fake 50 rupee notes detected in 2017-18 compared to 2016-17. In addition, the number of detected fake 2,000 rupee notes grew by 2,710 percent, while fake 500 rupee notes jumped by 4,871 percent.


The Indian government believes that the notes are produced by foreign racketeers in Pakistan, on-demand from Pakistan’s military intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). India’s National Investigation Agency found that fake Indian currency was used by Pakistani terrorists involved in the 2008 attack in Mumbai.


According to news reports, the main motive behind Pakistan’s printing of the fake notes is to destabilize the Indian economy. It’s a major issue for the Indian government, which aims to make the counterfeiting of Indian currency an offense under the country’s anti-terrorism law, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967.


In August 2018, the Indian government disclosed that from the date of demonetization up until June 30, 2018, nearly 43 percent of fake Indian currency seized was in Gujarat state. A further 15.8 percent was recovered from Uttar Pradesh and 14.4 percent in West Bengal. Significant amounts of fake currency were also found in border states including Mizoram, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, and Rajasthan. However, the problem is no longer restricted to border states. Counterfeit 2,000 rupee notes, which were said to look so genuine it would be hard for the average person to identify them as fake, were recently seized in most of the cities in the country.


Until now, although counterfeit INR had been identified as those had actually been manufactured by various crime rackets under the direct supervision of Pakistani ISI, but since 2018, Indian rupee notes are being directly manufactured in the security printing press in Pakistan. According to sources, it is almost impossible for anyone to detect those counterfeit currency notes, which are printed in the security printing presses. It said, ISI has a plan of pumping at least two billion counterfeit Indian rupees by 2019, most of which would be circulated by the members of jihadist outfits named Hizbul Mujahedin, Jamaatul Mujahedin Bangladesh (JMB) and Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA).


Pakistan is believed to have numerous counterfeit currency networks operating out of Nepal, Bangladesh, and Thailand. Countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Iran, Iraq, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia are also used as transit points. Majority of the stake of dealing in counterfeit INR is being handled by a sacked Bangladeshi military officer named Md. Shahid Uddin Khan, who maintains a huge network within the Indo-Bangladesh common borders for pumping counterfeit INR into India.

 

[ssg_slayer]

Mumbai could be Jaish’s target, says Indian intelligence


Jaish-e-Mohammed, the Pakistan-based terrorist group, is looking to scale up attacks on security forces in Jammu and Kashmir as well as economic targets in cities such as Mumbai, intelligence agencies have told the government.

The assessment comes a day after Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan declared that India’s decision to revoke the special status of Jammu and Kashmir could lead to “Pulwama-like incidents”, even trigger a conventional war between India and Pakistan.

It is a statement that is being seen as an indication of Pakistan attempting to ramp up its support to terror groups, even push terror groups to throw all that they had.

A senior security official told HT that around the time Imran Khan made the statement, came news that Rauf Azghar, the younger brother of Jaish chief Maulana Masood Azahar had moved up to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir after meetings in Rawalpindi yesterday.

Rauf Azghar’s shifting closer to the border between the two neighbours ties in with reports emanating from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir about a large number of Jaish recruits shifting from its camps in Punjab towards the border.

In the hinterland, a top government official said, the intelligence establishment assesses that there could be attacks against some infrastructure and economic target.

The intelligence bureau suspects the Mumbai could be one of the targets on the radar of the Jaish-e-Mohammed, an official said, attributing this assessment to a string of inputs that had been received.

This set of inputs includes intelligence reports that a three-member Jaish team had been assigned the task of carrying out an attack in Mumbai and local sleeper cells had been activated.

The security establishment had anticipated much of these emerging developments.

This is the reason why National Security Adviser Ajit Doval landed in Jammu and Kashmir for a last-minute review of the security preparations with army and paramilitary commanders along the Line of Control and beyond.

The Centre had also told state police agencies to step up security at key places.

source: https://www.hindustantimes.com/indi...ntelligence/story-II8TT1NunZswVptHkqJOxH.html

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PS: I posted here because there is clear footprint of ISI behind this.

 

[sbowl1]

KGB and both CIA had good footprint in our Intelligence system. KGB seems to have been replaced slowly by MSS and ISI. But because India's economy is getting stronger the influence is being countered by new guys.

 

[A chauhan]

Spy Network Crackdown...

 

[Cheran]

Turkey’s tentacles in India go deeper than thought, says new intel warning

The intel report also accused the Turkish Embassy in Delhi of forging alliances with Indian NGOs, pointing that Indian activists who serve Ankara’s agenda are increasingly being sent to Turkey on exposure trips and encouraged to speak against India.

www.hindustantimes.com

But this isn’t all that Ankara has been doing. An intelligence report on the role played by fronts for the Turkish government last month accused Ankara of efforts to radicalise Indian Muslims and recruit fundamentalists. Turkey had emerged as the “the hub of anti-India activities” next only to Pakistan.

A second report handed over to national security planners over the past week said fronts for the Turkish government or the outfits it supports - some of them directly linked to Erdogan and his family - appeared to have made deeper inroads in India than assessed earlier. Much of this effort is directed via three sectors: Turkish state media, educational institutes and the nonprofit sector, or NGOs.