India Intel agancy RAW

Internet: PC's world wide.

Wednesday August 08 2007 12:24:34 PM BDT

By Iftikhar Gilani

NEW DELHI: Indian intelligence agencies not only eavesdrop on domestic
telephone lines but have also been intercepting international
communication traffic passing through the SEA-ME-WE submarine cable
connecting Western Europe, the Middle East and South East Asia, in
violation of international laws. Set up in 2000, the cable is the main
source of connectivity for telephones and broadband Internet services
in the region. Major General VK Singh, former head of the Research and
Analysis Wing's (RAW) technical cell, claims that the agency has
procured interception-technology from France. The equipment has been
installed at the VSNL (India's overseas communication service) gateway
in Mumbai, he says.

Spilling the beans in his latest book "India's External

Intelligence: Secrets of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW)," Gen Singh
says RAW, in its bid to emulate the US Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA), has been unnecessarily tapping telephone traffic between, for
example, Germany and Japan.

The author also lashes out at the former NDA government for
going public with the famous interception of a telephone conversation
between Gen Pervez Musahrraf and his chief of staff, Lt Gen Mohammad
Aziz, to prove Pakistan's complicity in the Kargil war. Gen Singh
believes India may have won some brownie points with the United States
by going public with the intercepted conversation, but it led to
Pakistan immediately closing the satellite link between Beijing and
Islamabad, which RAW had been tapping into for quite some time. "It is
impossible to estimate the value of intelligence that would have been
obtained if the link had continued to be used," he writes.

Demanding parliamentary oversight over intelligence agencies, Gen
Singh says lack of accountability is the most glaring shortcoming of
RAW. Incompetent leadership as well as mistrust are also eating into
the credibility of the organisation.

Since RAW officials are not answerable to any outside agency, many
officers treat themselves as being above the law, and in fact as a law
unto themselves, he adds.