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Author: Mayank Towari
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: July 16, 2006
Introduction: Sponsored by Pak, many of them have upped their ante but are hard to identify
In the aftermath of the serial blasts on trains in Mumbai, sleuths and security experts of the country are training their radars on sleeper agents who have their bosses across the border. "Pakistan supported sleeper agents have heightened their activity in India after being dormant for years," a senior government official told Hindustan Times.
This group of terrorists will never be caught. If they are spotted, their names and addresses will figure in a top-secret file. The security agencies will work on the premise that a round the clock surveillance on their movements may yield clues about an impending terror strike-like the bomb explosions that rocked Mumbai. If that doesn't work, they may get eliminated.
Home ministry officials told HT that till May this year, the Indian government was aware of the presence of nearly 1,000 sleeper agents all over the country. "They (sleeper agents) are concentrated mostly in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Western UP and Gujarat," the official said. Unfortunately, that's all that is known about them. With inputs suggesting a spurt in their activity, it is going to be tough days ahead for the security agencies.
Those sleeper agents who have been identified have often been natives of India but who moved elsewhere in early life (read Pakistan) before returning to India. Till recently most sleepers were hailing from Jammu and Kashmir but that trend is fast disappearing. They now come from all parts of the country Theory apart, senior home ministry officials assert that a sleeper agent is different from couriers and carriers - people like Ajaz Hussain Khwaja who was arrested by the special cell of the Delhi Police from Janpura in South Delhi, a day after the Mumbai blasts. Hailing from the Baramulla district of Jammu and Kashmir, Khwaja was arrested with two kilograms of RDX and Rs 49 in cash. Both were meant for further delivery to militants.
"A sleeper agent would not compromise his cover for a small operation like supplying arms, giving details of a plan or forwarding hawala money. Their identity is known only to a close circle of bosses and the terrorists who take their assistance don't know who they are. For example, a militant may be told that in Delhi he will get some emails instructing him where a safe house has been arranged and where he should collect essentials from. It is this anonymity, coupled with an Indian passport (mostly legal) that makes sleepers so unassailable," a senior police officer said.
Delhi's most interesting encounter with a sleeper agent was soon after the Red Fort attack in December 2000. A man called Ashfaq Ahmed was arrested as the mastermind of the attack and has since been awarded the death sentence.
He came to India in May 2000 to set up a base. He married an Indian woman, so loyal that she hurled abuses at the judge who pronounced the death sentence. He set up a computer centre in Gafoor Market in Okhla on which he invested in excess of Rs 6 lakh. That's where according to security officials, the similarity between Ashfaq and sleeper agents ends. "He was a sleeper agent in the sense that the best sleepers are those who are able to earn enough money to finance themselves. However since he was actively involved in the operation we have our serious doubts. Plus his incubation period (the time a sleeper takes to get comfortable. This could run into nearly four to five years) was too short," a senior home ministry officer said.
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