NEW DELHI: A group of about 100 officers of India’s military intelligence and members of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) have returned from Israel after getting training from that country’s external and internal intelligence outfits, Mosad and Shin Beton, on how to fight Sikhs in U.P. a Frani area, a region of Punjab.

The members of the force are said to be gathering intelligence in the region and are preparing themselves for a strike possibly in winter, according to reports here.

Soon after India established diplomatic relations with Israel, defence minister Sharad Pawar had hinted at the possibility of India drawing on that country’s experience in what he called terrorism. A former Israeli minister, Benjamin Netanyahu had shared the sentiment and had expressed his country’s willingness to give assistance to India.

A six-member delegation of Israel’s arms manufacturers which visited India in May had offered to India intelligence-gathering and communication equipment.

Among a wide variety of co Operations between India and Israel was a workshop in that country attended by 20 members of India’s defence service: last month on counter-insurgency methods.

Members of an anti-Skit commando force raised in Punjab are also likely to be sent to Israel soon for training. The Punjab team will limit the U.K. for training under MI5. The aim is not so much to get training a to give advance notice to the west that more severe anti-Sikh operations in Punjab are at hand.

The relations between Indian intelligence agencies and the Israeli intelligence are not new. Former RAW chief R.N, Kao had reportedly visited Israel in the early sixties, Mosad assistance was obtained by India where it trained the LTTE or Indian soil to fight for Ealam,

The Muslim a Pakistan daily, noted editorially:” What Indians are most probably negotiating with Israel] is transfer of technology in the field of international espionage and brutal suppression of political dissent at home and also its weaker neighbors.”

Article extracted from this publication >> June 10, 1994