Constant efforts by foreign agencies to set up spy ring: Govt

This admission by a Union Minister came nearly seven months after Madhuri Gupta, an IFS-Group B officer posted in the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, was arrested on the charges of working for the Pakistani intelligence.

To counter efforts of hostile agencies, government has established a robust mechanism for exchange of information and liaison with friendly nations on counter-terrorism through Ministries of External Affairs and Home Affairs, the minister said.

"Government is constantly monitoring activities of the hostile agencies to subvert individuals and create agents of influence in different institutions both in the public and private domain and has been taking action to neutralise the same wherever necessary," Maken said.

When asked about reports of moles in the administrative set-up acting on behest of such agencies, he said "hostile activity is being constantly monitored and countered by the agencies concerned".

There have been several instances in the past where India's security agencies busted spy rings being run by foreign intelligence agencies in the country.

In 2004, joint secretary at the Research and Analysis Wing Major Rabinder Singh, who was allegedly working as a mole of a foreign intelligence agency, gave a slip to RAW's counter-intelligence division, which had placed him under surveillance, and fled the country along with his family via Nepal.

In the 1990s, a senior IPS officer serving in the Intelligence Bureau was suspected to have been working for a woman diplomat then posted in the mission of a Western country.

In the 1980s, another IPS officer, who served in RAW as a director and headed the agency's office in Chennai, was found to have been working for a foreign country.