INDIAN SPIES ‘KICKED OUT’ OF AUSTRALIA FOR TRYING TO STEAL DEFENCE SECRETS — ABC NEWS REPORT
New Delhi: Australia “kicked out” Indian spies in 2020, after they were caught attempting to steal secrets about defence projects, airport security and Canberra’s trade relationships, an ABC News report has said.
The article said the expulsion of Indian agents found mention in the annual report of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) chief Mike Burgess in 2021, during his Annual Threat Assessment address in 2021.
“The so-called foreign ‘nest of spies’ disrupted by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) in 2020 was also accused of closely monitoring Indians living here and developing close relationships with current and former politicians,” the Australian broadcaster said.
While the publication made no mention of the total number of Indian agents expelled, the Washington Post reported two days ago that two Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) agents were thrown out of the country.
ThePrint was also the first to report on the expulsion of R&AW agents from the US and the UK on 30 November last .
‘Spies developed targeted relationships’
Burgess in 2021 said the spies nurtured targeted relationships with current and former politicians, a foreign embassy and a state police service, ABC News reported.
He added that agents also “monitored their country’s diaspora community” and tried to “obtain information about Australia’s trade relationships”.
ABC News said Burgess also detailed how the “nest of spies” had successfully cultivated and recruited an Australian government security clearance holder who had access to “sensitive details of defence technology”.
In the next Annual Threat Assessment address in 2022, Burgess described how friendly countries were attempting to conduct espionage operations in Australia.
Singapore, South Korea, Israel and India were said to be some of the friendly countries with “active” espionage operations in Australia, according to the ABC report.
Australia and India are part of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) along with the US and Japan. Ties between New Delhi and Canberra have improved in recent years, with India considered as an important partner in the Indo-Pacific by Australia.
Also read: Former Indian envoy to Australia ordered to pay AU$ 1,00,000 penalty for underpaying domestic staff
Alleged Indian operations in the West
There have been allegations from Canada and the US that India was involved in a murder-for-hire plot and an assassination of Sikh extremists residing in those countries.
The plot to kill US citizen Gurpatwant Singh Pannun was thwarted by US agencies, with one Indian, Nikhil Gupta, lured out of India and arrested in Prague on 30 June 2023 by Czech authorities on the request of American agencies, according to The Washington Post.
In November 2023, the US Justice Department indicted Gupta in the murder plot, while naming a co-conspirator — an agent of the government of India — as CC-1. The American newspaper Monday suggested that CC-1 was Vikram Yadav, a former R&AW official.
The paper also suggested that Yadav was linked to the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada in June 2023.
Three months after Nijjar was gunned down outside of a gurdwara in British Columbia, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that authorities were investigating a potential link with Indian agents. Both Nijjar and Panun were designated terrorists by India.
Indian authorities dismissed Canada’s accusations as “absurd and motivated”, while announcing a high-level inquiry to look into the evidence shared by the US regarding Pannun.
The Indian Ministry of External Affairs Tuesday termed the American paper’s reporting on the Pannun plot as “speculative” and “irresponsible”.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
2024-05-01T08:38:04Z dg43tfdfdgfd