Pakistani mole in India's embassy in Russia arrested

New Delhi: The arrest of a man in Uttar Pradesh has revealed that Pakistan’s military spy agency had planted a mole at the Embassy of India in Moscow and used him to obtain classified information about the country’s relations with Russia, including defence cooperation between the two nations.

The Anti-Terrorism Squad of the Uttar Pradesh Police has arrested Satendra Siwal, a security assistant at New Delhi’s diplomatic mission in Moscow, after questioning him at Meerut in the northern state.

Siwal, a resident of Shahmahiuddinpur in Hapur, was one of the multitasking staff at the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and was posted at the Embassy of India in Moscow as a security assistant since 2021. His exposure as an agent of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) came almost 14 years after the arrest of Madhuri Gupta, a Grade B officer of the Indian Foreign Service (IFS), who was posted at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad and was used by the neighbouring country’s intelligence agency for espionage.

The ISI targeted the Embassy of India in Moscow even as Pakistan has, over the past few years, sought to upgrade its ties with Russia, including by expanding defence cooperation, which was very limited earlier.

New Delhi’s decades-old defence and technology ties with Moscow have also been under the scanner of the United States and the rest of the West, particularly after India refused to lend its voice to the clamour against Russia’s “special military operations” in Ukraine and defied American and European sanctions to continue procuring crude oil and military hardware with the former Soviet Union nation.

The UP ATS, in a press release, stated that it had been receiving intelligence inputs from secret sources indicating that ISI operatives were enticing MEA employees to obtain militarily and strategically important classified information related to the armed forces of India. Recognising the serious threat posed by such espionage activities to the internal and external security of the nation, the UP ATS worked on the intelligence inputs and corroborated them with the findings of physical and electronic surveillance.

The investigation led the UP ATS officers to Siwal, who was found to be working for the ISI and engaged in activities detrimental to the interests of India. It was discovered that Siwal was passing on crucial classified information related to the MEA, the Embassy of India in Moscow, the Ministry of Defence, military establishments, and the mobilisation of the armed forces to ISI agents in exchange for money, the UP ATS stated.

Siwal was summoned to the UP ATS field office in Meerut for questioning. However, he failed to provide satisfactory answers, succumbed to intensive interrogation, and confessed to his offense. Subsequently, he was arrested, and an FIR was registered against him at the ATS Police Station in Lucknow under Section 121A of the Indian Penal Code and the Official Secrets Act, 1923. These charges pertain to waging war against the country and leaking classified information, according to the press release.

A source in New Delhi mentioned that the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) is aware of Siwal's arrest in Uttar Pradesh and continues to collaborate with investigative authorities on the matter.

The last public exposure of an ISI mole in a diplomatic mission of New Delhi had taken place less than one-and-a-half years after 10 Lashkar-e-Tayyiba terrorists had carried out the 26/11 carnage in Mumbai from November 26 to 28 in 2008, killing 166 persons and injuring many others. Gupta was posted at the High Commission of India in Islamabad when she was lured by the ISI agents, who used her to secure classified information from New Delhi’s diplomatic mission in the Pakistani capital. India’s intelligence agencies put her under the scanner, and it was confirmed that she was working for the ISI. She was summoned to New Delhi for some official work and was arrested. She was later convicted and imprisoned. She passed away in 2021.