No harm in talking to the ISI: Rediff.com news

• No harm in talking to the ISI: Rediff.com news

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  • B Raman

  • It may be recalled that Ajmal Kasab [ Images ], the sole surviving terrorist of the Mumbai attacks, had reportedly told interrogators that the original target date for the attacks was in September, but the Lashkar-e-Tayiba [ Images ] postponed it for reasons not known to him. Taj was still the ISI chief at that time.

    The inference from this was that the conspiracy for the attack was drawn up by the Lashkar, with the knowledge if not at the instance of the ISI headed by Taj, but when he was replaced under US pressure, the ISI withdrew from the conspiracy. The Lashkar went ahead with the plot without the ISI's further involvement.

  • From all this, it is evident that there is active lobbying -- if we do not want to use the word pressure -- for a liaison relationship between the ISI and an appropriate Indian intelligence agency. The US seems to be playing a role in this exercise.

  • There is no harm in our giving a try to the idea of an informal, clandestine one-to-one liaison relationship between the ISI and R&AW. We should not have any illusions that it would result in a sharing of actionable intelligence. Intelligence agencies share actionable intelligence only when they have common State and non-State enemies. India and Pakistan do not have common enemies.

    Even countries, which do not have an adversarial relationship, do not sincerely share all intelligence. They pick and choose depending on their national interest.

  • In the cae of all liaison relationships there is a danger of the other intelligence agency trying to mislead by planting false intelligence. This danger will be very high in the ISI's case. It could create alienation between the Government of India and our Muslim community by planting false intelligence about selected members of the Indian Muslim community, particularly about those it does not like.