Shri, Prakash Javedekar
Honorable Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting
Shastri Bhavan, Rajendra Prasad Road, New Delhi

Most respected Honorable Minister,

Recent report of arrest of a journalist for spying for Chinese agencies is indeed very disturbing. I am a Nationalist and have been in civil service. I had the opportunity of working in the most sensitive areas in the Government of India. Hence I am not alien to such indulgences by the members of the media corps.

2. It is not my habit or endeavour to paint every media person with the same brush. In my book I have acknowledged the contribution of some of the mediapersons. But few bad apples do exist. Without taking any names let me share certain facts which have been observed and come to my notice through some inputs from the agencies which can be verified

3. At the outset let me underline the South Asian Free Media Association(SAFMA ) under the aegis of South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation located in Lahore an outfit which was prominent during the period upto 2014. It is indeed a fact that there are inputs in the Union Home Ministry, the Joint Intelligence Committee under the PMO and other intelligence agencies about the adverse anti India position of SAFMA and its office bearers. Further let me share a very important point that SAFMA had very little regional character in it and it was mostly India-Pakistan mediapersons bonhomie. The other countries of the region like Nepal, Sri Lanka etc had very token presence with a few sweeteners thrown in. This can be corroborated by information available in your Ministry. Also every SAFMA office bearer has always held a contrarian view with the interest of India which I respect he is entitled to. But when the same view is total copy of the ISI’s stated position, that does raise some suspicions. When the same view gets document in different reports of international documents it is furthermore disturbing. The matter is accentuated by the fact that such views are without any basis and does not rely on or repudiate any authentic Government report is a clear indication that this is a part of larger game of ISI’s psy ops.

4, SAFMA was actually serving an institutional mechanism for sharing sensitive information on the India’s counter measures in Kashmir, other conflict areas and counter terrorism initiatives during those days. You may recall that people who were closely associated with SAFMA had repeatedly perpetuated that policy of soft approach towards terrorism, involvement of Pakistan in Kashmir process, and several other approaches even as late as May 2017. Extracts of a news report is placed below for your perusal please.

The group which also included Air Vice Marshal (retired) Kapil Kak, O P Sharma, chairman of the Centre for Peace and Progress, and journalist Vinod Sharma, met Mirwaiz at his Nigeen residence.

“They discussed the prevailing situation in Kashmir,” a Hurriyat spokesman said.

The group was in Srinagar for a dis ..

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/congress-leader-mani-shankar-aiyer-meets-moderate-hurriyat-chairman-mirwaiz/articleshow/58837886.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

The leader of the collaboration is Mani Shankar Aiyar a former MP and former Honorable Minister, who had openly sought Pakistan’s help is unseating our beloved Prime Minister. He had also organised a meeting with former foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri in 2017 with informing the Indian Government. It is a matter of fact that this was an attempt to derail the peddle the position of Pakistan.

5. Even in the aftermath of 26/11/2008 when discussions were going on in strengthening the legislative changes in respect of combating terrorism and amendments to UAPA were being discussed, which inter alia also included criminalising holding of propaganda material for promotion of terrorism and few other stringent measures, the officers attending the meeting in the room of Law Secretary were astounded to find two persons connected with media and another entered into the room of Secretary Law. It happened on 3rd of 4th of December, 2008. The officers were sitting in the meeting table with board arrangement in the Room and discussing. These two personnel discussed with Secretary not within the hearing range of the officers. But few minutes later, the Secretary received a call stating that the draft legislation shall be only restricted to 8th Report of 2nd Admistrative Reforms Commission, which inter alia had recommended bringing the Intelligence organisation under the oversight of political establishment. The issue of holding of propaganda material got dropped thereafter.

6. In this regard, may I humbly suggest that you may request our agencies to confirm the report about many professional groups including media personnel compromising them with honey traps, by Pakistani call girls entering India through Nepal, and later blackmailing for different activities like gathering information, planting media narratives, enabling policy interventions, interventions in executive actions and police investigations, enabling omissions on the part of Police like the 23.11.2007 blasts in Jaunpur, Lucknow and Varanasi etc. inspite of actionable intelligence shared in July 2007, October 2007 and 2nd November 2007 about a possible blasts. There are cases galore like this including possibilities in creating omissions in Rampur Attack of 1.1.2008 and major terror attacks. These members of media did carry out the entire ISI narrative in the Sohrabuddin Case as well as Ishrat Jehan case from 2006 to 2014.

7, Now latest scandal to hit the headlines is the drugs in Bollywood scandal. I would not comment on this till the final outcome. But the way certain media channels are raising in support of the drug lords when our agencies are continuing to bring out more and more information through their diligent professional work. But most disturbing is that the lobbying that has gone on in deny these reports change of narratives like this investigation is intended to divert the attention of the country from other issues is without doubt a case lobbies using the august Parliament the temple of democracy to further their agenda. But what is more important is that narcotics constitute 20 percent of terror funding as per the reports of the intelligence agencies. Hence is Bollywood funding terror is the new question that the nation seeks an answer. More importantly ISI links to drug cartels are well established, did we have an Honorable Member of Parliament nonchalantly stepping on the prohibited stone will propagating the denial narrative in Parliament. The course of events that followed have repudiated her position on the denial narrative.

8. Now about the media and drugs, let me take you back to a story of 15 years vintage. This was narrated by some security personnel. A huge cache of drugs were seized in Delhi in March 2005. One person was arrested. In the said incident an accomplice got killed. That accomplice was the son of very power person in the media. They entire narrative of this killing was changed as an accident of being a hit and run case. The then Minister of I&B spoke to the Commissioner of Police Delhi of the time and personally ensured that not trail is left All this to ensure the deniability of children of elites of Lutyen’s Delhi indulging in drugs. I do not know the details of the persons. I do not want to sully the image of the child who unfortunately is not longer with us. But I am sharing this to buttress my point that no professional area is free of these menace and we need to escalate the level of diligence. The police personnel were also too keen to peddle this narrative as that would mean avoiding a lot of trouble in the sense that unnecessary media attention could be avoided as well as police personnel would be spared of any encounter killing controversy. So they too were too willing to hush up the matter and make it look like an accident.

9. You may recall (ibid) that I had stated about SAFMA being an institution for formalising he espionage ring of Pakistan. In this connection it is not just the espionage ring. It is beyond that. Our agencies are aware that drug trafficking is contributes to about 20% of funding of terror activities in India. In this context, every non-governmental institution or exchange under bilateral or under the aegis of SAARC, is used by Pakistan to also traffic drugs. They don’t even spare sports exchanges. You may recall the sudden deportation of two famous cricketers on 16 or 17 October, 2006 by the Pakistani High Commission in India during some Championship. The Pakistan who always takes to recourse to denial even in the face incontrovertible evidences did admit to their players abusing drugs was a bit of surprise. Kindly obtain the version from the Indian Teams security Manager a retired army officer then. It is a fact that the entire team of Pakistan including the manager, were peddling drugs, During a scuffle with some lady, the events went out of hand polic had to be called out. In the ensuing police action, it was found that the entire team was peddling drugs smuggled inside their kit bags. When this came to the notice for Pak High Commission, they immediately decided to send the two delinquents back to cover up the trafficking by rest of the members of the team. Here too the Pakistani High Commission was alerted in the midnight by some media personnel. Besides, you may take a detailed input from the intelligence agencies to get more such cases.

10. You are aware that the media personnel have been given access to all Government buildings. But I have during my service mining for information. In Rajeev Sharma case as well in the earlier Shantanu Saikia case which related to economic espionage, these incidents have happened.

11, During my tenure in the security establishment I have had to visit very sensitive locations including attending meetings in out of bound places in the South Block. I have found some of these personnel waiting in these places mining for information. One room were strategic deployment are decided, the room of China Desk as well as PAKIRAG Registry, outside the room of DG (HR) of AFHQ now known as IDS (that time it was Lt. Gen. Bhattacharya where I had gone to attend meetings), and many other places.

12. Respected Minister, several excellent initiatives have been taken under the leadership of our beloved Honorable Prime Minister. But what is paramount is that these lobbies which are using every attempt to derail these great initiatives have to countered. They also need to be exposed and exemplary action is required in this direction.

13. Respected Sir, while I do support the Government endeavour for transparency and sharing its courses of action with its people through media, such unrestricted access may undermine very sensitive action which can have adverse bearing on Nations security. Hence I would kindly request you to initiate action on allowing media persons into Government buildings per se, which shall be only after due positive vetting one a continuous basis.

Respected Sir, I am sharing this with you in utmost confidence so that the excellent Nation centred initiatives of beloved Honourable Prime Minister are not undermined.

This is my authentic email. I am desisting from sharing other details about my address etc, for the time being for reasons of confidentiality. Upon acknowledgement I shall share my Aadhar details.

With warm regards,

Yours faithfully

(R.V.S. Mani)

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