Govt using smugglers as spies
From Gurpreet Singh
Tribune News Service

FEROZEPORE, Dec 19 — In a change of scenario, intelligence agencies are now relying on smugglers for getting secret information from across the border. This is contrary to the earlier convention, when only diehard nationalists were sent to Pakistan on secret missions.

Sources in various intelligence agencies here said the change was necessitated on account of the low level of motivation among the civilians, for the job that involves a high amount of risk. Although this has restricted the scope of spying to ascertain the whereabouts of force deployment and movement of smugglers and infiltrators from across the border, intelligence officials feel that in the absence of volunteers, they are forced to use the services of smugglers.

In return, the agencies offer them cover to carry out smuggling of almonds, cigarettes and liquor. While smuggling of opium also in the process cannot be ruled out, the agencies deny this.

The lack of motivation for this task among the civilians is being attributed to the shabby treatment meted out to the volunteers, who had offered this “service to the nation” purely on emotional grounds way back, between 1947 and the early 70s.

Not only the ‘spies,’ who were arrested by the Pakistani authorities during those years, had to suffer at the hands of the enemy country, but their families also lived in penury back at home. This substantially affected the morale of volunteers, the intelligence agencies and former ‘spies’ here feel.

The sources pointed out that intelligence agencies now prefer to ‘buy’ information from smugglers. We are short of diehard nationalists these days”, an intelligence official said.

However, this trend has limited the scope of spying. In the absence of ‘well-read spies’, who could earlier bring information on the political and social situation from across the border, ‘ignorant’ persons are now being engaged for the task. They can at the best ascertain the location of vital installations and bridges.

A former Indian spy to Pakistan — Mohan Lal Bhaskar, who is now based in the city, claims that he has a definite information that smugglers and ruffians are being engaged for espionage these days. This, he laments could fuel trans-border crime.

He says, that civilians now don’t come forward for spying owing to the ‘shabby’ treatment meted out to his contemporaries.

Mr Bhaskar, who was arrested in 1968 in Pakistan remembers that when he was doing espionage work for India, his family suffered poverty and humiliation back at home.

“Our experiences have affected the morale of civilians, who could have otherwise volunteered to serve the nation”, he says while condemning the trend of seeking the services of smugglers for spying.

Mr Bhaskar, who is a teacher by profession, says that most of his contemporaries were thinkers and from the well-to-do families. Had the authorities treated them well, the spying work would not have gone into wrong hands, he feels.

The officers posted with the local military intelligence and the Intelligence Bureau wing, however, claim that they still have volunteers to handle the job and to say that spying is being done by wrong elements is ‘incorrect.’