Espionage among nations is an understandable reality but it is a bit odd for a state of the Indian Union to use spies to access sensitive files of the government in another state. Unfortunately, that is exactly what the Intelligence wing of the Kerala Government is now accusing neighbouring Tamil Nadu of doing.
The Kerala Police’s Intelligence wing has reported to the Government that it has spotted a Keralite working with the Public Relations Department of the Tamil Nadu Government who has been accessing secret Kerala Government files on issues of inter-state water-sharing agreements from the State Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram and passing them on to Chennai.
The Intelligence report has advised the Government to be extremely careful about the activities of this official, who has been frequenting the Secretariat acting as protocol officer of the Tamil Nadu Government, and to take action immediately to ensure that he does not enter the premises of the office complex anymore.
The Intelligence report acquires particular significance at this juncture as Kerala Water Resources Minister PJ Joseph and his Tamil Nadu counterpart are set to hold a meeting on Sunday on the Parambikulam-Aliyar water-sharing agreement between the two states. Kerala has been complaining that Tamil Nadu not consistently been violating terms of the pact.
According to the Kerala Government, Tamil Nadu has been violating the agreement by refusing to release to it the 7.25 tmc water due to it annually. The report on the “Tamil Nadu agent” frequenting the Kerala Secretariat has come also at a time when a case it filed in the Supreme Court over the Parambikulam-Alyar pact is to come up for hearing soon.
The Intelligence wing suspects that the official could have sent across contents of sensitive files prepared by Kerala for Sunday’s meeting. There are rumours in the Kerala capital that the same official had made all the required arrangements for the visit of two State Ministers to Tamil Nadu recently. It is said that the Secretariat-based espionage has been going on for the past 20 years.
The report said that the Tamil Nadu official, hailing from Thiruvananthapuram, had been accessing Kerala Government files by influencing top officials in the State Secretariat using tempting offers. He is said to have immense influence over top Kerala officials and members of personal staff of important Kerala Ministers.
At the height of the Kerala-Tamil Nadu standoff in end-2011 over the 117-year-old Mullaperiyar dam inside the Kerala territory on the inter-state border in Idukki district, there were allegations that the Tamil Nadu Government had been “buying” Kerala officials and leaders using a secret fund it had been keeping but Chennai rejected the charge.
The “spy” was reportedly spotted after an employee at the Secretariat grew suspicious of his curiosity about Kerala’s position on the ongoing dispute over the Parambikulam-Aliyar water-sharing pact and alerted the Intelligence. The CM said on Friday that the Government was viewing the report seriously.
Stating that stringent action would be taken against anyone found causing leakage of Government files, State Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan said, “We are speaking about an Intelligence report on an important matter. We cannot avoid viewing it seriously. However, no decision has been taken on the action to be initiated against the TN official.