According a report published in Indian news portal ThePrint, Qatar has arrested eight Indian Navy personnel on allegations of spying on the country’s sensitive security projects. This matter has already become a great embarrassment to India as Doha and New Delhi are having good relations for years. Meanwhile, some media reports claim, these Indian Navy personnel were operatives of RAW (Research & Analysis Wing), while it is also reported that Israeli spy agency Mossad, which has been continuously trying to infiltrate within sensitive establishments in Qatar, has intensified its efforts ever-since it succeeded in normalizing relations with the United Arab Emirates thus opening its embassy in Abu Dhabi.
Commenting on the issue, a retired officer of a Western intelligence agency told this correspondent that Israeli Mossad has paid “more or less an amount equivalent to US$1 million to each of these arrested personnel of Indian Navy”. It further said, by foaling Israeli Mossad’s plot, Qatari intelligence agency Qatar State Security has shown its brilliant performance, as the matter is of highest national interest of the State of Qatar.
The source further said, Israeli Mossad has also been trying to infiltrate within other sensitive establishments in Qatar, including its media organizations by recruiting Indian nationals as its moles or agents.
The retired officer of a Western intelligence agency also said, Israel has been trying to intercept targeted mobile phones and communication devices of Qatari key personnel by using Israel-made malware such as Pegasus, while Israeli Mossad has been also secretly recruiting foreign nationals in Qatar as spies. Some of these Israeli moles have connections with Qatari defense officers as well as those working at royal palaces in different positions.
The case of the arrest of Indian Navy personnel in Qatar
Quoting intelligence sources, ThePrint said, eight former Indian Navy personnel being tried in Qatar have been accused of spying on the oil-rich kingdom’s secretive program to obtain Italian-made, high-tech submarines coated with metamaterials that make their detection by adversaries difficult.
Legal proceedings against these eight Indian officers began on March 29, 2023 and the next date of hearing is scheduled for May.
ThePrint said, Fincantieri SpA, a Trieste-based shipbuilding firm, had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Qatar for the production of submarines in 2020, as part of a wider project involving the construction of a naval base and maintenance of its military fleet. Qatar had also placed orders for four corvettes and a helicopter carrier, as part of a major naval buildup.
“We’ve tried hard to convince our counterparts in Doha that India and its nationals were not involved in hostile intelligence operations against the emirate”, an intelligence officer told ThePrint on condition of anonymity. “But the Qataris are insisting that intelligence on their submarine program was passed on to Israel”.
The Qatar State Security, the state intelligence agency, claimed to have intercepted electronic communications establishing that the naval officers were spying on the submarine program, the officer further said. The purported evidence, he added, has not been shared with India.
Former naval commander Purnendu Tiwari — who was awarded the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman in 2019 for his services to India — has been incarcerated since September 2022 along with fellow officers Navtej Singh Gill, Birendra Kumar Verma, Sugunakar Pakala, Sanjeev Gupta, Amit Nagpal, Saurab Vasisht and Ragesh Gopakumar. The men were contracted to provide training services to the Qatar navy.
At least one of the former officers had experience of submarine projects, public records show. Sugunakar worked as additional general manager in charge of submarine repairs at Hindustan Shipyard in Visakhapatnam from 2016 to 2018, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Tiwari worked as managing director at defense consultant Dahra Global Technologies & Consulting Services. Former Oman Air Force officer Khamis al-Ajmi, the chief executive officer of Dahra Global, was briefly detained after the arrests, but was released. The company, sources said, has resumed operations in Doha, and continues to retain some Indian nationals among its staff.
In December last year, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had said that India had secured consular access to the men.
Earlier this month, the MEA said that it “attaches high priority to the matter and remains engaged with the Qatari authorities regarding the case”.
“Let’s see…now that the legal process is underway, we’ll keep a close watch on that”, MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi had said, adding that the charges had not been placed in open court so far.
Fincantieri told ThePrint the 2020 MOU has not been implemented. There have been reports, though, that new-generation submarines were being built for Qatar by the company M23 S.R.L at a factory in Bergamo in collaboration with submarine maker CABI Cattaneo. Representative computer-generated graphics were released in the course of a presentation made by CABI Cattaneo to the Italian defense ministry in 2021.
According to industry publications, the submarines are smaller variants of the U212 Near Future Submarine, built by Italy in cooperation with German firm Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems. The U212 includes an air independent propulsion system, allowing for extended operations without surfacing. The U212 also has electronic capabilities which allow it to operate as a mothership for autonomous undersea drones.
ThePrint in its report said: “The acquisition of the submarines by Qatar has implications for both India and Israel. The Pakistan Navy already operates Cosmos-class midget submarines, built by an Italian firm, which can be used for special forces operations against Indian naval facilities. Qatar has close ties with the Pakistan armed forces, and New Delhi fears it could seek to acquire the stealth technologies embedded in the new submarines.
“Israel and Qatar also have a closely-guarded military relationship, but Tel Aviv has long tried to block the proliferation of state-of-the-art technologies across the Middle East, fearing they could undercut its military edge”.
Meanwhile, Indian news service IANS in a report said, “Eight Indian Navy officers, who have been in the custody in Qatar since the past eight months on espionage charges, are learnt to be facing a potential death sentence”.
Quoting Pakistani newspaper, The Express Tribune, IANS said, “The accused have been identified as working for the India’s intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and were reportedly caught carrying out espionage activities in Qatar, the report further claimed.
“The arrested officials reportedly provided Israel details of Qatar’s secret program to buy advanced submarines from Italy, says The Express Tribune.
“The CEO of a private defense company and the head of international military operations of Qatar have also been arrested in the same case, according to the report.
“All eight officers of the Indian Navy were also employed in the same company, it added”.
