Keep an eye out for this traitor

RAW is a nice organization. Too secretive, of course, considering they are our spy agencies, but the most important thing to know for me is that I hope their heart is in the right place, that is, it beats for Mother India.

Now every country in this world has seen traitors in its midst, and India is no exception. The latest to run away is one Rabindra Singh, a high ranking officer, who in fact was a CIA mole. Of course as the news of his absconding filled the media, it left RAW and other associated agencies highly embarrassed and angry.

Now the traitor has been located living in the state of Virginia in the USA. Following is more information on him, from The Pioneer.


The spy who walked out


In May 2004, Rabindra Singh, a high-ranking RAW officer, disappeared from the country. Accused of being a CIA mole, Singh is now reported to be safely lodged in Virginia - Pramod Kumar Singh
At a time when a high political drama was unfolding in the Indian capital after the 2004 Indian general elections threw up a stunning verdict leading to the ouster of the NDA Government at the Centre, a top Indian intelligence official quickly seized the opportunity. Taking advantage of the prevailing confusion in the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), he dodged his fellow operatives. On May 14, it seems, Rabindra Singh disappeared, but how and where, no one has been able to coherently explain. Most RAW officers believe he managed go over to neighbouring Nepal from where he left for the US.

Singh, a former RAW joint secretary, was a CIA mole embedded in RAW and the highest-ranking Indian intelligence officer ever to defect. He is now safely lodged in his house in Virginia. There are intelligence inputs that his handlers in the US are planning to shift him to a safe hideout in New York to beat the Indian Government's extradition efforts. If extradited to India, Singh could face prosecution under the National Security Act and the Official Secrets Act.

It is one of the Indian intelligence community's enduring mysteries how Rabindra Singh managed to flee to the US despite being under IB and RAW surveillance.

There has been concern in RAW about the damage Singh has inflicted on the agency which he served for many years. Senior intelligence officers believe that although Singh had no access to highly sensitive material, he managed to photocopy many secret documents and obtain information from other colleagues.

That Singh was spying for the CIA came to notice after the New Delhi CIA station chief inadvertently dropped his name at a conversation with RAW officials during a routine meeting. Others assert that it was not so, and suspicion fell on him as he began raising questions within the agency he had no business to ask. According to one account, the counter-intelligence unit of RAW confronted him on April 19 - shortly after he returned from the US - and accused him of removing "sensitive files" from the RAW headquarters in New Delhi. On May 4, 2004 a report was sent to the RAW brass saying Singh, whose family lived in the US, had bank accounts in Singapore, Brunei and the US and that he should be arrested.

It is possible that it was the IB's counter-intelligence division which first rang alarm bells about Singh after noticing a clandestine meeting between him and a suspect CIA agent.

External intelligence agencies have a provision in their service rules called the "golden handshake". They can ease out of the organisation incapable or unreliable officers by persuading them to quit in return for handsome monetary compensation. They use this provision quite often to weed out undesirable elements without getting involved in protracted and controversial litigation. It still remains a mystery why Singh was not eased out of RAW after his conduct was found to be questionable.

Singh was no great shakes as an intelligence officer and there was a big question mark over his reliability since the early 90s, when he began an operation for the collection of intelligence on US Government activities in South Asia through a sister of his, employed in a sensitive US agency with links to the CIA.

One such piece of disinformation which they allegedly tried to feed through this channel in the late 80s was that the US Embassy in New Delhi had reported to the State Department that the then Chief of Army Staff was planning a coup against Rajiv Gandhi.

Singh was not the only officer won over by US spies. The first instance of this kind was detected in 1986-87 when a senior IPS officer in RAW, posted in Chennai for handling the Sri Lanka operations, was found to be in cahoots with the CIA.

In the second instance, in the early 90s, a CIA agent in the New Delhi US Embassy tried to recruit an IB officer who immediately reported it to his superiors. They laid a trap for the CIA officer, collected evidence of his misdeeds and ordered him to leave the country.
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