The Vanished Spies

Ranjit Bhushan August 02, 2004 00:00 IST The Vanished Spies -0001-11-30T00:00:00+05:53

The wheel has come full circle at the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). Already reeling under the impact of the Rabinder Singh episode—the senior RAW officer is suspected to have defected to the US—there may be more skeletons tumbling out now at India's premier spy agency. For the first time, the firm has admitted that eight of its key operatives have gone missing—almost all while on critical assignments outside the country— since the agency's creation in the late '60s. Rabinder is the ninth such known man on the defectors' list (accessed by Outlook).

The file with the names is now on the desk of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Most of the cases go back a few decades but some names are likely to cause deep embarrassment in the spy community. Most of these operatives disappeared while on posting, relocating themselves to countries in North America and West Europe under assumed names and false passports. A number of them, it now turns out, were well-guarded 'assets' in the hands of foreign agencies, a euphemism for double agents, and are now green card holders...