Uttar Pradesh
Pakistani Mole in India's Embassy in Russia Arrested
- 06 Feb 2024
- 3 min read
Why in News?
The Anti-Terrorism Squad of the Uttar Pradesh Police has arrested Satendra Siwal, a security assistant at New Delhi’s diplomatic mission in Moscow.
- It is revealed that Pakistan’s military spy agency had planted a mole at the Embassy of India in Moscow to obtain classified information about the country’s relations with Russia, including defence cooperation between the two nations.
Key Points
- He was a resident of Hapur and one of the multitasking staff at the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) who was posted at the Embassy of India in Moscow as a security assistant from 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 neighboring country’s intelligence agency for espionage.
- New Delhi’s ties with Moscow have also been under the scanner of the United States and the rest of the West, 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 last public exposure of an ISI mole in a diplomatic mission of New Delhi had taken place after 10 Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists had carried out the 26/11 carnage in Mumbai from November 26 to 28 in 2008, killing 166 persons and injuring many others.
- Madhuri 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.
