# How Does Military Intelligence Work? | Pahalgam Attack Aftermath | IOD S3 Ep 5

An episode of [In Our Defence](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1617244439), 28 Apr 2025, 55 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/65781957/28_apr_25_iod_mix_28_april_128.mp3

In this episode of 'In Our Defence', Dev Goswami talks to Major Manik M Jolly about his time in military intelligence, how to gather information after a major terrorist attack like Pahalgam, and how accurate is the "intelligence failure" question that is being asked. Produced by Prateek Lidhoo Sound mix by Suraj Singh

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: This is India Today Podcasts.
[0:05] Speaker 2: Welcome to season three of In Our Defense, the podcast
[0:08] Speaker 2: that takes you inside the world of conflict. I'm your host,
[0:12] Speaker 2: Dave Goswami, and every week I sit down with experts
[0:16] Speaker 2: and retired officers from the Army, Navy and Air Force
[0:20] Speaker 2: to decode all things to do with India security and
[0:23] Speaker 2: explore what it truly means to serve. Get ready for
[0:27] Speaker 2: stories of strategy, sacrifice and strength. This is in Our Defense. Hello,
[0:35] Speaker 2: This is another episode of In Our Defense within season
[0:38] Speaker 2: three and in the season. On the season, I've been
[0:40] Speaker 2: getting people retired from the from the military, Army, Air Force, Navy.
[0:46] Speaker 2: We began the season with Major Marning Jolly, decorated veteran
[0:52] Speaker 2: of the Army, and he's back with this again. Welcome
[0:54] Speaker 2: Major Jolly. We're recording this episode in the somber aftermath
[1:00] Speaker 2: for terrorist attack in Jermin, Kashmir. Twenty six people were
[1:03] Speaker 2: massacred by terrorists in Palkam, not in pe Healcam, a
[1:06] Speaker 2: a near to Picam, around five to six klometers away
[1:09] Speaker 2: in a place known as the best in Meadow, where
[1:13] Speaker 2: a group of terrorists basically rounded up a bunch of
[1:16] Speaker 2: tourists and shot them at point blank range. In the
[1:19] Speaker 2: aftermath of this of this attack, we have seen various
[1:24] Speaker 2: trands of discussion happening in the country, from what would
[1:27] Speaker 2: be India's response, whether it's diplomatic to military, to what
[1:32] Speaker 2: what what went wrong in the first place that allowed
[1:35] Speaker 2: us an attack to happen? Uh, And quite expectedly and
[1:39] Speaker 2: perhaps not and perhaps rightfully so, one of the biggest
[1:43] Speaker 2: questions that has been raised has been about intelligence failure.
[1:47] Speaker 2: You see this term crop up very often whenever an
[1:49] Speaker 2: attack of this magnitude happens. What I want to want
[1:53] Speaker 2: to do on this episode Major is to from you
[1:56] Speaker 2: and from your experience, give not just our listeners viewers,
[2:00] Speaker 2: but also me that insight into what this world of
[2:04] Speaker 2: intelligence is all about. Because you know, I've been told
[2:08] Speaker 2: this by various people who covered the world of defense.
[2:11] Speaker 3: Quite often it.
[2:12] Speaker 2: Is only the attacks that sort of fall through the cracks.
[2:14] Speaker 2: Is the are the ones that we hear about and
[2:16] Speaker 2: not the ones that are successfully stopped. In a year,
[2:19] Speaker 2: you'll probably have hundreds of such threats being utilized. You
[2:23] Speaker 2: won't hear about them, because that's the world of intelligence. Uh,
[2:26] Speaker 2: You'll only end up hearing about the ones that kind
[2:29] Speaker 2: of you know, succeed. Not that that is any defense
[2:33] Speaker 2: for or that is any excuse for what happened in Pellgam.
[2:37] Speaker 2: But like I said, this episode we will focus on
[2:42] Speaker 2: we will try to understand what this world is about
[2:44] Speaker 2: so that I, my listeners and my viewers can get
[2:48] Speaker 2: a get a better at a fuller picture of when
[2:51] Speaker 2: something does go wrong, how and why probably it went wrong.
[2:55] Speaker 3: Would you mind if I give a little disclaimer. Whatever
[2:58] Speaker 3: I'm speaking here is my personal opinions. Nobody should consider
[3:02] Speaker 3: this as an official statement from either the Directorate of
[3:05] Speaker 3: Military Intelligence or Indian Army or government. We are just
[3:08] Speaker 3: sharing personal views. Yes, yes, and in no way. Yeah,
[3:13] Speaker 3: you know, I would like to comment on what the
[3:15] Speaker 3: operations are, the quality. I would like to start on
[3:17] Speaker 3: this thing, the intelligence failure thing. Why it is so
[3:20] Speaker 3: commonly used whenever something goes wrong. I think it's the
[3:24] Speaker 3: perfect alibi for everyone. Uh. Let's divide any action into
[3:29] Speaker 3: three three parts, right, one is the information gathering about it,
[3:33] Speaker 3: second is the guys who operate on it, and third
[3:35] Speaker 3: is the government that makes the policy. Right. So the
[3:38] Speaker 3: operational guys, let's say police CRPI for that. People who
[3:43] Speaker 3: are operationalizing also have a front where they can defend themselves.
[3:46] Speaker 3: Kind of right, why did this happen? They have spokespersonal
[3:49] Speaker 3: all This second part is the government, which always has
[3:52] Speaker 3: a lot of spokesperson Actually why this thing went wrong?
[3:55] Speaker 3: Over the intelligence community is the only one which never
[3:59] Speaker 3: comes ahead to defend themselves, So it becomes a perfect
[4:03] Speaker 3: alibi in that sense and in another sense. The reason
[4:06] Speaker 3: is that the intelligence community canerys say that it is
[4:10] Speaker 3: miib raw state policy idea. Everybody who's working in cosme
[4:14] Speaker 3: trying to generate intelligence on terrorist activities, they would send
[4:18] Speaker 3: a lot of inputs every day. Nobody there is a
[4:23] Speaker 3: system in which information translates into intelligence will get to that.
[4:29] Speaker 3: But the point is a lot of intelligence is shared
[4:30] Speaker 3: on daily basis because there's so much going on. Right
[4:33] Speaker 3: from what is you get to know some Tansiem leader
[4:38] Speaker 3: has moved from place to be in Pakistan. That's a
[4:40] Speaker 3: worthwhile input, you will share it. Two, I came to
[4:44] Speaker 3: know that two terrorists have entered the nearby village or
[4:47] Speaker 3: something that's worthwhile information you would share. The onus is
[4:51] Speaker 3: on the operational command or the operational leaders. What do
[4:54] Speaker 3: they do with it? Our job is not execution. Our
[4:57] Speaker 3: job is not take going for operations. Our job is
[5:00] Speaker 3: to turn all the information that we get and turn
[5:04] Speaker 3: it into actionable intelligence as much as possible at whatever stage,
[5:09] Speaker 3: and share it with the decision makers. In that what happened.
[5:13] Speaker 3: The strength of intelligence community lies in the in the
[5:19] Speaker 3: quality of its operators. I can give you ten points, right,
[5:23] Speaker 3: I can give ten people ten points, all ten of
[5:26] Speaker 3: them will come a bit different analysis. So the quality
[5:30] Speaker 3: of intelligence operators is what it matters. And in that
[5:34] Speaker 3: am I has done a fantastic job right from you know,
[5:37] Speaker 3: the wars we fought and in Punjab and in Castmeida,
[5:40] Speaker 3: consistently giving very solid, actionable intelligence all the time. But
[5:44] Speaker 3: in the end our job actually finishes. There After that
[5:48] Speaker 3: it is the you know, the core or brigade or
[5:52] Speaker 3: division whichever wants to take act on it, or even
[5:54] Speaker 3: the unit level. So that is why, in a way
[5:57] Speaker 3: it becomes easier to say it's intelligence failure, because somewhere
[6:02] Speaker 3: in the labyrinth of all this intelligence that would have
[6:05] Speaker 3: been generated in the last six months, something would have
[6:08] Speaker 3: come up in on these lines that the build up
[6:11] Speaker 3: and some also the thing is it's very difficult to
[6:15] Speaker 3: infer intelligence in a black and white scenario. You will
[6:18] Speaker 3: never get an intelligence. It's I mean one in a
[6:22] Speaker 3: billion chance, not even a million. That so and so people,
[6:26] Speaker 3: a group of swuantsho are coming to attack here. This
[6:28] Speaker 3: is what their plan. Although if you catch somebody or kuda,
[6:31] Speaker 3: that's a different thing. But otherwise you say a build
[6:34] Speaker 3: up is happening, they're likely to come inside. The target
[6:38] Speaker 3: could be a group of civilian people. Now that group
[6:42] Speaker 3: of civilian people could be a bus stand, that could
[6:44] Speaker 3: be a household, that could be a village, that could
[6:46] Speaker 3: be a tourist spot like this that could bust convoy
[6:48] Speaker 3: like earlier civilian attacks on civilians. As that we laa
[6:52] Speaker 3: so the range in which information comes is always very vague.
[6:59] Speaker 3: And again come back to the so intelligence work is
[7:02] Speaker 3: not very glamorous as it seems to be in movies
[7:04] Speaker 3: and all. That's a pretty misrepresentation. It's a lot of
[7:08] Speaker 3: hard work, a lot of reading, a lot of studying transcripts,
[7:11] Speaker 3: a lot of paperwork, a lot of analystis a lot
[7:13] Speaker 3: of midnight oil just going through whatever data you have
[7:17] Speaker 3: again and again and again connected with how these people talk.
[7:20] Speaker 3: Actually when he spoke like this that time, what did happen?
[7:23] Speaker 3: Who's connected to whom you have so much gaps in it.
[7:26] Speaker 3: Tomorrow I come to Nodve has crossed LCA and he's
[7:30] Speaker 3: planning something. It is a confirmed information, but I don't
[7:35] Speaker 3: know anything ahead of that. I don't know whether you're
[7:37] Speaker 3: going to so Poor or you're going to shar. I
[7:39] Speaker 3: don't know who your friends are. I don't know what
[7:41] Speaker 3: are you planning to do. So there is so much gap,
[7:43] Speaker 3: and hence it is easy to label it as an
[7:46] Speaker 3: intelligence failure. The community works in a very restained mold.
[7:50] Speaker 3: As far as the input is coming. You have, yes,
[7:53] Speaker 3: this part of the show, writing, movies or series and
[7:56] Speaker 3: all that, or even books, you have sources. You have
[7:59] Speaker 3: multiple channels of information coming in. But processing it is
[8:03] Speaker 3: a challenge because of so much gaps and also the
[8:05] Speaker 3: capabilities of the information gathering that we have. So like
[8:10] Speaker 3: they say they will send a small drone, a camera,
[8:13] Speaker 3: remain movies and also absolutely really complicated. Right.
[8:18] Speaker 2: I like the part where you said about how this
[8:20] Speaker 2: is almost like an alibi for everybody, because I get that,
[8:23] Speaker 2: and that's actually exactly the reason I wanted to do
[8:25] Speaker 2: this episode, especially with you, somebody who's worked in this field.
[8:29] Speaker 2: You know, before we talk a bit more about your
[8:32] Speaker 2: life in m I and what the day was like
[8:35] Speaker 2: for you and stuff like that. I wanted to first
[8:38] Speaker 2: understand from you why and how did you end up
[8:41] Speaker 2: being in military intelligence? So tell us from infantry, how
[8:45] Speaker 2: did you end up being in military intelligence?
[8:47] Speaker 3: Okay, that's a question a lot of people have asked,
[8:49] Speaker 3: include my family people. The thing is that I did
[8:53] Speaker 3: my first tenure in Copoda, and just to clarify, even
[8:58] Speaker 3: the book Codes is a mixure of my infantry as
[9:00] Speaker 3: well as intelligence. Right, there's a lot of intelligence operations
[9:03] Speaker 3: happening in that and the second book is all about
[9:05] Speaker 3: pure into operations. So but after that, I went to
[9:09] Speaker 3: a DC as a ADC to dev commander. It was
[9:13] Speaker 3: around a year and a half there, and that's when
[9:16] Speaker 3: I met a couple of intelligence officers who were operating.
[9:20] Speaker 3: The found their work very interesting. I found it, you know,
[9:23] Speaker 3: I mean cognitively very challenged, challenging, right, So I thought
[9:28] Speaker 3: I should give it a try. So you have to
[9:30] Speaker 3: apply for it. There's a written test, there's an interview,
[9:34] Speaker 3: and then there's a two year probation period. Okay, after
[9:37] Speaker 3: that they see if you have the right aptitude for it.
[9:41] Speaker 3: Because there's a certain kind of mindset that you need
[9:45] Speaker 3: to be in intelligence. I mean you have to have
[9:48] Speaker 3: a very analytical mind which is able to process the
[9:54] Speaker 3: information in a faster and more you know, bullet point
[9:57] Speaker 3: format if for lack of it, the world. Secondly, by
[10:04] Speaker 3: nature you will find I mean it might sound a
[10:07] Speaker 3: little oxymoor on me sitting here on a podcast and
[10:10] Speaker 3: saying that interstage only not looking for operators across the world,
[10:14] Speaker 3: and not the guys who are looking for limelight. Ever,
[10:16] Speaker 3: yes we I mean, even if nobody calls me for
[10:18] Speaker 3: podcasts next five hundred years, I want to live that
[10:22] Speaker 3: next twenty years. I've ilb you all right with it.
[10:24] Speaker 3: But yes, I actually go to a lot of places
[10:26] Speaker 3: for guest lectures or panel discussion motivation. That's a professional
[10:31] Speaker 3: part of it. But the fact that you will rarely
[10:34] Speaker 3: find anybody talking about I did I did that. That's
[10:38] Speaker 3: not a that that that's that's not how we are.
[10:41] Speaker 3: So whenever you ask anybody who's a genuine good interpreator,
[10:45] Speaker 3: he will say I did my job what I had to.
[10:47] Speaker 3: I think that's where we summ it up, most of us.
[10:50] Speaker 3: But then, yes, you have some people who love the limelight.
[10:54] Speaker 3: So this kind of I mean, it's a personality thing.
[10:58] Speaker 3: Working in it is not about qualify cations. It's about
[11:01] Speaker 3: what personality you are. Are you able to listen more,
[11:04] Speaker 3: speak less? Are you able to get more information and
[11:08] Speaker 3: give less in any surroundings? How do you view a thing? Again,
[11:13] Speaker 3: I'm saying, I'll come back to you. We can give
[11:16] Speaker 3: the same situation to ten different people. All ten will
[11:18] Speaker 3: come up with different outcomes. In that you have to
[11:21] Speaker 3: pick up the guy who's coming up with what you want.
[11:24] Speaker 3: Is he able to analyze it right? Plus you should
[11:27] Speaker 3: have a lot of I mean, as far as working
[11:30] Speaker 3: with data is concerned, you should have patients and capability
[11:33] Speaker 3: to do that. So all data data DA data, whether
[11:37] Speaker 3: lega phone transcripts or call logs or you just studying
[11:41] Speaker 3: map for days and days. So that's a So the
[11:46] Speaker 3: seniors who evaluated me during my probation, obviously they were
[11:50] Speaker 3: looking for and that's how I cleared the probation. My
[11:53] Speaker 3: first posting was in Pune and that's how I got
[11:55] Speaker 3: into am I and I always I have loved my
[11:58] Speaker 3: time there. For some domestic reasons, I had to leave Army,
[12:02] Speaker 3: but I absolutely love my time and am I army
[12:05] Speaker 3: will be always my first love. So it was very
[12:09] Speaker 3: learning and something that shaped me for my future life also.
[12:14] Speaker 3: And I can't say everybody should join it because everybody
[12:18] Speaker 3: won't be able to, but it's a great place to
[12:20] Speaker 3: work for sure. Yeah.
[12:23] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very interesting the way you describe the sort
[12:26] Speaker 2: of character you need to be an intelligence operative. And
[12:30] Speaker 2: you know, while you were while you were saying, I
[12:32] Speaker 2: kind of remember this, recalled this this moment from some
[12:37] Speaker 2: some movie. I cannot quite picture which one it was,
[12:40] Speaker 2: but I think this was about if I'm not an
[12:42] Speaker 2: adjacent one movie where the operative is getting some first
[12:45] Speaker 2: and experience where they are being taught that the moment
[12:48] Speaker 2: you enter a room you are supposed to like, you know,
[12:50] Speaker 2: look for these ten ways you can sort of escape
[12:53] Speaker 2: from that room as quickly as possible.
[12:55] Speaker 3: Does that actually happen in training? So the thing is,
[12:58] Speaker 3: I mean, that's a movie. It has to be sensationalized,
[13:02] Speaker 3: you know, you have to come up with so any
[13:04] Speaker 3: movie that we make or any OTT series, whether it's Indian,
[13:07] Speaker 3: whether it's Western, you have to create these guys into superheroes,
[13:13] Speaker 3: and you have to make these guys into something they
[13:15] Speaker 3: are like they can get into a ac duct and
[13:18] Speaker 3: you know, they can jump from hair and climb from hair. Yes,
[13:21] Speaker 3: there are some operatives who especially would have done these
[13:25] Speaker 3: kinds of operations, but mostly you don't go to I mean,
[13:29] Speaker 3: there's rarely a situation where you have to enter a
[13:31] Speaker 3: room and look for ten places to escape. But your
[13:34] Speaker 3: mind is very agile, that's for sure, because especially when
[13:39] Speaker 3: you're meeting people for information, people you're meeting your so
[13:45] Speaker 3: a lot of work happens where you are not actually
[13:48] Speaker 3: saying who you are. You work a little under the
[13:52] Speaker 3: shades of cover. In that you have to be very sharp.
[13:55] Speaker 3: A small mistake can give you up right. There's a
[13:57] Speaker 3: very famous story which was done in newspaper about an
[14:03] Speaker 3: Indian guy who was caught in Pakistan. So some agency
[14:07] Speaker 3: would have sent him. He did everything, he learned the language, culture,
[14:12] Speaker 3: custom every and did not even first visit there. But
[14:15] Speaker 3: there during the checking at some checkpost, he was wearing
[14:19] Speaker 3: asama and the kurta had made in Patankot tag years
[14:23] Speaker 3: of training down the train for a simple small mistake,
[14:26] Speaker 3: you know. And he was then in jail for almost
[14:28] Speaker 3: ten twelve years there and he narrated his story when
[14:32] Speaker 3: he came back. So my point mean that this was
[14:34] Speaker 3: covered in newspapers, so I'm giving you open information right
[14:38] Speaker 3: which is available on media. My point being that mental
[14:43] Speaker 3: agility is very critical araw than you. There rarely will
[14:48] Speaker 3: be a chance in life where you have to jump
[14:50] Speaker 3: around like a James band, but there will be daily
[14:54] Speaker 3: requirement would be to actually think, act, analyzes, create. As
[14:59] Speaker 3: I said, the ability of a good inter operator is
[15:02] Speaker 3: to analyze the situation and not get a very unbiased approach.
[15:07] Speaker 3: Is what we take when we analyze the data. Because
[15:09] Speaker 3: if we find you know this is your enemy, these
[15:11] Speaker 3: are your friends, this is a gray zone. All that
[15:14] Speaker 3: is okay. But when you're working, if you are shit,
[15:16] Speaker 3: if you're shrouded by any kind of bias, you will
[15:19] Speaker 3: come up with long data. Plus, we don't get into
[15:21] Speaker 3: too much jinguism. That's a fact. That's that's what sets
[15:24] Speaker 3: us very apart from regular soldiers. I was to say,
[15:29] Speaker 3: because it is your job. It is a primary task
[15:33] Speaker 3: to advise the commander what root he should take. We
[15:37] Speaker 3: are advisors intelligence office advisors, as intelligence providers. What is
[15:42] Speaker 3: a This route is the best, this is the least resistance.
[15:46] Speaker 3: Here are the enemy camps, the here, the local supporters
[15:49] Speaker 3: here are here's what terrorists sacco. All that means that
[15:54] Speaker 3: you are very critical in decision making, and hence you
[15:56] Speaker 3: cannot be biased, you cannot be jinguist, you cannot be
[16:00] Speaker 3: over the top. You have to have a very stable
[16:02] Speaker 3: approach to everything today. If you ask me, and a
[16:06] Speaker 3: lot of people don't like when I say that, at
[16:07] Speaker 3: a lot of places should be fight. India should be fight,
[16:11] Speaker 3: Pakistan should be fight China. You'll never hear missaying let's go,
[16:16] Speaker 3: let's take them on something. It's just not in my
[16:19] Speaker 3: nature and personality. I'll say, these are the risks. Yes,
[16:23] Speaker 3: this is where we can go wrong. Hence, now you
[16:26] Speaker 3: take the call whether we should do it or not.
[16:28] Speaker 3: Because the wall is a brutal business. It's very violent
[16:32] Speaker 3: and it causes a lot of damage to everybody who's
[16:34] Speaker 3: involved in it. And if you have stomach for it,
[16:37] Speaker 3: then get into it. So it's our job to tell
[16:39] Speaker 3: our commanders that focus is always on the worst case scenario,
[16:42] Speaker 3: best stop nap hoojai. If it turns out right right,
[16:45] Speaker 3: our job is to give the worst case scenario. This
[16:47] Speaker 3: is what can go bad. These are our weak points,
[16:50] Speaker 3: this is where we can be compromised or we can
[16:53] Speaker 3: be exploited or leveraged. That's how that's so, that's what
[16:57] Speaker 3: it takes to actually become a good staff of self.
[17:03] Speaker 3: When you're in field, when you're operating, that's mostly intelligence
[17:08] Speaker 3: gathering or counterintelligence. That mean either you are gathering the
[17:11] Speaker 3: intelligence or stopping your intelligence going on. Both are equally
[17:14] Speaker 3: important roles. So that's more or less the graph of it.
[17:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I think just about cold hard facts. Basically,
[17:22] Speaker 2: this is what it is. This is the I think
[17:24] Speaker 2: your job as an intelligence officer would have been to
[17:26] Speaker 2: present the real picture as far as possibility the best
[17:30] Speaker 2: of your ability, and then it's for the decision makes
[17:32] Speaker 2: make a decision. Keep by this is what it is
[17:36] Speaker 2: that I'm guessing there is no space for emotions then
[17:38] Speaker 2: to be involved, right, So I wanted to also obviously
[17:43] Speaker 2: dive into your time in military intelligence and sort of
[17:46] Speaker 2: your experiences. Uh and before we get to the actual aspect,
[17:52] Speaker 2: and obviously only what you can tell us, because there
[17:54] Speaker 2: will be several things you cannot tell us on this podcast.
[17:57] Speaker 2: But I think there are a couple of hypotheticals I
[17:59] Speaker 2: want to do with you of like sort of real
[18:03] Speaker 2: word scenarios where that would I think help me and
[18:06] Speaker 2: the viewers and our listeners sort of get a picture
[18:09] Speaker 2: of what the day in the life of actually into
[18:12] Speaker 2: this office is all about. Let's say you were in
[18:15] Speaker 2: the you were in am I right now in the
[18:17] Speaker 2: aftermath of the massacre that just happened in pe Hellcam.
[18:21] Speaker 2: What would have been the last three four days like
[18:24] Speaker 2: days for you? Would you have been like, you know,
[18:25] Speaker 2: no sleep at all, or the all day at office?
[18:27] Speaker 2: I mean you been told you this has happened.
[18:31] Speaker 3: What do you do next? It definitely would be like
[18:34] Speaker 3: that that because even in something as catastrophic happens like that, right,
[18:40] Speaker 3: it's all hands on deck. My point being that that
[18:44] Speaker 3: is a time you actually the most critical thing is
[18:47] Speaker 3: to solve it. Who did it, why he did it,
[18:51] Speaker 3: and most of where did they come from? How did
[18:53] Speaker 3: this gap happen? That's also very important to investigate how
[18:56] Speaker 3: did they get here? Even if they had support, who
[19:00] Speaker 3: supported them? All these required a lot of investigations. So
[19:03] Speaker 3: first thing is you, like anybody would assume, I'm not
[19:06] Speaker 3: giving some national secrets here, you activate all your sources
[19:11] Speaker 3: and the thing is a sources also, everybody knows this
[19:15] Speaker 3: is a high priority, just like you know red zone. Now,
[19:18] Speaker 3: so there's a let's say, for you know better understanding,
[19:22] Speaker 3: you have ten tasks, you would have a some marked
[19:26] Speaker 3: with red dots, green, yellow, that priority vice right, so
[19:29] Speaker 3: everything else goes back. You just get focused. What it
[19:33] Speaker 3: does is that in your team, if you have ten people,
[19:37] Speaker 3: two people are on one investigations, two are handling something else.
[19:40] Speaker 3: You say a bit through a whole everything right, come back,
[19:43] Speaker 3: get into the ops room. Let us all sit together
[19:45] Speaker 3: and focus on this for until the time we get
[19:48] Speaker 3: to the base of this that happens. Then a lot
[19:53] Speaker 3: of coordination happens. Actually, what happens in the intelligence community
[19:57] Speaker 3: is the bane of this community that people don't share
[19:59] Speaker 3: in you would know as anybody else. And this is
[20:03] Speaker 3: not limited to India, this across the world. Agencies are
[20:07] Speaker 3: very territorial about their information source says even operations. So
[20:11] Speaker 3: till the time it matures and you actually successfully do it,
[20:14] Speaker 3: people don't share it. So they would give a random
[20:17] Speaker 3: NT today I came to know like this would be
[20:20] Speaker 3: great in conference happening and say, I know there's a
[20:22] Speaker 3: guy called they who's driving very fast. This is nothing,
[20:25] Speaker 3: so that kind of thing. So people don't share good information.
[20:29] Speaker 3: But it's how it is. There is no answer to that.
[20:33] Speaker 3: But that is the time people let go of this.
[20:36] Speaker 3: They come to table and everybody shares, actually shares a lot.
[20:40] Speaker 3: We have this, what do you have? We have this?
[20:42] Speaker 3: And somehow dots tend to join, which at the end
[20:45] Speaker 3: the you know, the everything goes to Pakistan and there
[20:49] Speaker 3: are different channels coming and now everything is coming to Pelgam.
[20:53] Speaker 3: So let's say it's a kind of a situation where
[20:56] Speaker 3: a lot of lines diverged and then they concentrated again
[20:59] Speaker 3: on Pelgam. A lot of people would have info a
[21:02] Speaker 3: lot of these lines. If you start connecting them to shape,
[21:06] Speaker 3: starts to emerge. Right then you figure out then the
[21:09] Speaker 3: best thing that you do is you ask who has
[21:11] Speaker 3: the best who's most well positioned in that zone where
[21:17] Speaker 3: you know the ground zero. Let's say it isn't Jummu,
[21:21] Speaker 3: for example, so I would say, yeah, we know a
[21:24] Speaker 3: lot of guys there, because let's say if it isn't
[21:28] Speaker 3: somewhere in Delhi, so I w would say we know
[21:30] Speaker 3: a lot of people. So that kind of then then
[21:32] Speaker 3: they take the lead on it, and then they start
[21:34] Speaker 3: investigating and on the ops room, those inputs are shared.
[21:38] Speaker 3: This is how This is more or less how they
[21:40] Speaker 3: show in movies and a pretty normal common sense kind
[21:43] Speaker 3: of input. Then you start collating whatever you so you
[21:49] Speaker 3: have input coming in from all sources, but you have
[21:52] Speaker 3: your base information with you. You start creating a picture
[21:55] Speaker 3: at your own end, and that again it's it's a
[21:58] Speaker 3: reputative process. You keep improving on what you have to
[22:01] Speaker 3: arrive at analysis and I'll again go back. Information does
[22:05] Speaker 3: not matter. Intelligence is the first step. Intelligence is, let's say,
[22:10] Speaker 3: a smart analysis of information that you have.
[22:13] Speaker 1: Right.
[22:14] Speaker 3: What matters is actionable intelligence most importantly, and that comes
[22:18] Speaker 3: from a lot of analysis. So the day to day
[22:20] Speaker 3: job is actually turning data into actionable intelligence. In this case,
[22:25] Speaker 3: also the moment something on new input comes and it
[22:28] Speaker 3: changes the way looking at operation or trying trying to
[22:31] Speaker 3: do the investigation, you immediately submit it so that the
[22:34] Speaker 3: other guy who's working on it also has a new
[22:37] Speaker 3: data point which he can include in his analysis. So
[22:41] Speaker 3: that's how it works. Mostly it's a very high pressure
[22:44] Speaker 3: work because everybody's asking you, like after anything happens, you
[22:52] Speaker 3: hear the right the patrols were sent out, armies, a
[22:56] Speaker 3: lot of jungle bashging happening, happening, and people are all
[23:00] Speaker 3: on the play looking how do they know where to go? Actually,
[23:02] Speaker 3: that's what guys tell Fine, you can say, if the
[23:06] Speaker 3: operation has happened here, let's search the jungle around. But
[23:10] Speaker 3: there's a very rare chance they'll be sitting in the
[23:12] Speaker 3: same jungle they do the these tailors do their operation,
[23:17] Speaker 3: and they'll keep sitting there. So it's kind of defeats
[23:21] Speaker 3: the purpose. And hence for that they go back to
[23:23] Speaker 3: the inky sky. Where should we start the search? What
[23:26] Speaker 3: is the last input you have? Something is always there.
[23:29] Speaker 3: We just said to shift through those thousands of data
[23:33] Speaker 3: points and figure out, yeah, this is where I think,
[23:35] Speaker 3: this is the one I remember something happened, or this
[23:38] Speaker 3: is what I have. So even post action, when the
[23:44] Speaker 3: operations start, then also you come back to the incus
[23:47] Speaker 3: and say where do we start from? Where should we
[23:49] Speaker 3: put our pressure on, who are the people we should
[23:51] Speaker 3: talk to, How do we reach from here to there?
[23:54] Speaker 3: What is the path we should take?
[23:56] Speaker 2: So that's that's I want to now talk about what,
[23:59] Speaker 2: in my mind is the more difficult aspect of intelligence operations,
[24:04] Speaker 2: and I think also the majority of it because what
[24:07] Speaker 2: you've talked about, right now is more of investigating something
[24:11] Speaker 2: that has happened after the fact, investigating something that has
[24:14] Speaker 2: happened after an attack, which I would presume would be
[24:16] Speaker 2: easier because you know the end point, you know, so
[24:20] Speaker 2: now you have to go back and retrace what you
[24:22] Speaker 2: missed earlier, where the gapsure earlier that led to this
[24:26] Speaker 2: attack in this particular part of Jamoan and Kashmir, which
[24:29] Speaker 2: I think would be sort of easier compared to launching
[24:33] Speaker 2: an operation from scratch to compared to finding something that
[24:38] Speaker 2: you don't even know what you're looking for. So let's
[24:41] Speaker 2: take one more hypothetical the Balacote strike, not hypothetically the
[24:45] Speaker 2: sense that had not happened. It didn't happen, there was
[24:47] Speaker 2: an operation, but hypothetical for our viewers and listeners, hypothetical
[24:50] Speaker 2: for me and for you, to the point that you
[24:52] Speaker 2: were not involved in the operation that took place. So
[24:55] Speaker 2: had happened. The government has tasked the various intelligence agencies
[25:00] Speaker 2: to find potential attack spots in Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir,
[25:05] Speaker 2: spots that you know, where either of the three military
[25:07] Speaker 2: arms can safely target and attack. How does an operation
[25:12] Speaker 2: like that happen? What are the different aspects involved. Is
[25:15] Speaker 2: it just you know, satellite imagery. Are the human sources involved?
[25:18] Speaker 2: Is it just called records? What would have happened to
[25:21] Speaker 2: find that spot on Jaba Top hill and for that
[25:24] Speaker 2: report to be sent to the higher UPSKI This is
[25:26] Speaker 2: one of the locations that we think you could be
[25:28] Speaker 2: attacked where x number of people X number of terrorists
[25:31] Speaker 2: we believe are training stuff like that.
[25:35] Speaker 3: Great. So firstly, there are two aspects to this. Let's
[25:40] Speaker 3: say if commander came to them, I, director, we're planning
[25:44] Speaker 3: this chief for them. You know this, especially because you
[25:49] Speaker 3: mentioned Bala, it has a lot of air intelligence, does
[25:52] Speaker 3: not a pure you know, gunfight kind of a situation. Hence,
[25:57] Speaker 3: a line will be there, sorry, a line will be
[25:59] Speaker 3: there where are inputs are handed over to air intelligence
[26:03] Speaker 3: and they plan ahead because a strike we don't know
[26:06] Speaker 3: how they operate right their dog whites, their LGBs, their
[26:10] Speaker 3: range and all that. The part that the Army would
[26:13] Speaker 3: handle is we mora l less always have the am
[26:17] Speaker 3: I Direct Rate, which is manned by some of the
[26:20] Speaker 3: sharpest people in the direct rate. So the postings are
[26:24] Speaker 3: sometimes you're in field, sometimes you come back to army headquarters.
[26:28] Speaker 3: So they we maintained data. It's been like Pakistan is
[26:33] Speaker 3: there for last so many decades. We also know inch
[26:36] Speaker 3: by inch a lot of stuff. And as terrorists keep
[26:40] Speaker 3: getting interrogated killed, the information that comes from the documents
[26:44] Speaker 3: or people we interrogate, or people who spill our sources
[26:48] Speaker 3: and all. So you more or less have an idea
[26:50] Speaker 3: where these centers are training centers. What is critical piece
[26:56] Speaker 3: of information is if you want to launch this attack. Right,
[27:01] Speaker 3: So in nineties, when just a quick background in nineties
[27:04] Speaker 3: on you know everything, Benezebutto, she wanted to start these
[27:09] Speaker 3: terrorist organizations and her foreign minister who was an ex general,
[27:14] Speaker 3: they started with al Qaeda and all that and Taliban
[27:17] Speaker 3: and they'd create a lot of training centers across the
[27:21] Speaker 3: Pakistan Afghanistan border, both sides, right, So that was open
[27:27] Speaker 3: information kind of thing because they used to behave like
[27:30] Speaker 3: this is so like you start schools, colleges, universities. They
[27:34] Speaker 3: started these very organized training camps. It was a known thing.
[27:39] Speaker 3: Those are like stage one where people are getting trained.
[27:43] Speaker 3: From there, they come to a stage two where they
[27:46] Speaker 3: camp and stay for some time before they are ready
[27:49] Speaker 3: to be lost into India. This would be let's say
[27:53] Speaker 3: in more interior of Pakistan where all these are staying
[27:57] Speaker 3: under their leader and he's training them everything, radicalizing them
[28:03] Speaker 3: even more. All that these things happen and then they
[28:05] Speaker 3: come to launch pads where you're just waiting when do
[28:07] Speaker 3: you cross over? So it's like immediate notice kind of
[28:10] Speaker 3: a thing. They can be many stages to This is
[28:12] Speaker 3: not sacroocent, but more or less these are the phases right.
[28:16] Speaker 3: So the data is available, but as I said, the
[28:19] Speaker 3: critical input is you would want to cause maximum damage.
[28:24] Speaker 3: So where do you have maximum numbers available at what time?
[28:28] Speaker 3: This is part of the army part of it that
[28:30] Speaker 3: we can give them input. So you talk to your
[28:33] Speaker 3: sources across you talk to your sources this side that
[28:37] Speaker 3: we want to figure out when do you have maximum
[28:40] Speaker 3: people moving towards launch pad at which center? That is
[28:44] Speaker 3: what you're looking for. Plus they should be there for
[28:47] Speaker 3: some time. That's very critical. I mean, because you know
[28:52] Speaker 3: the aim is air rate. Now the Air Force guys
[28:56] Speaker 3: might say, I don't know. They can have ten reasons
[28:59] Speaker 3: for not to do that. Yes, you could have hostile
[29:02] Speaker 3: air space in Pakistan. They might be carrying out their exercise.
[29:06] Speaker 3: Timing might not be right, so you can't actually, I
[29:10] Speaker 3: personally can't tell what Air Force would reply. So you
[29:14] Speaker 3: want to have a you know, a certain time frame
[29:18] Speaker 3: in which you can do it. And in that timeframe
[29:21] Speaker 3: those people should be there, whether it's a week, ten
[29:23] Speaker 3: days to two days there. So that is what the
[29:28] Speaker 3: pointers you're looking for. Once you get to know through
[29:31] Speaker 3: all your sources possible, you share that with the Air
[29:34] Speaker 3: Force and actually leave it to them. That's the job.
[29:38] Speaker 3: But another thing is once that has happened, you do
[29:41] Speaker 3: keep your sources active. You know, the the quantum of damage,
[29:46] Speaker 3: the impact, what did the leaders behind, What did tanjims
[29:49] Speaker 3: are saying, or do terrorist leaders are saying or did
[29:52] Speaker 3: they impact them? What did the government saying? What is
[29:54] Speaker 3: the internal gossip? So all those kinds, So all these
[29:56] Speaker 3: things are very important. There part of you know, functioning
[30:00] Speaker 3: on operation like this from planning to the result. As
[30:05] Speaker 3: in review of the impact, you have to come back
[30:08] Speaker 3: with that we did this, this is what it has achieved.
[30:12] Speaker 3: It is also part of your duty. And if it
[30:15] Speaker 3: was let's say something totally from the scratch. So we're
[30:19] Speaker 3: talking about some basis that we already know right then
[30:22] Speaker 3: you task only the tasking differs that in that area
[30:26] Speaker 3: what are we looking for? Then maybe the Air Force
[30:28] Speaker 3: gives you a first pariety that we want to target
[30:31] Speaker 3: the area. Do you have something there? Hence, that is
[30:34] Speaker 3: how it changes. It's just the tasking, but the sources
[30:37] Speaker 3: and the there is satellite imaging. Nowadays, it's like it's
[30:41] Speaker 3: a whole different world. You can track everything and see everything.
[30:45] Speaker 3: Back in the day when it was so that was
[30:47] Speaker 3: a little bit more challenging. People had to go physically
[30:51] Speaker 3: and click cameras there used to be. When internet came,
[30:56] Speaker 3: we did so. I was specialized in this social thing.
[31:00] Speaker 3: Yes that we had to talk a lot on chat
[31:03] Speaker 3: Yahoo Chat and in for turn data into intelligence. A
[31:09] Speaker 3: lot of all agencies were doing it is I was
[31:12] Speaker 3: doing in India, we were doing there. Whole of the
[31:14] Speaker 3: world was doing it. You try and make sense of things.
[31:17] Speaker 3: Say I'm talking to you, and you say, I'm acting
[31:21] Speaker 3: like a young pretty girl and you are talking to
[31:23] Speaker 3: me and very nice all that, and then you say,
[31:27] Speaker 3: I say, I really want to come and visit you,
[31:29] Speaker 3: but I'm scared keep you must be living in some
[31:33] Speaker 3: remote village and all. So no, no, no, I have
[31:36] Speaker 3: a full fledged road in front of my house. My
[31:39] Speaker 3: government just built a new bridge. We are accessible. There,
[31:41] Speaker 3: you have a point you turn it into and key,
[31:44] Speaker 3: okay new. So this is pre satellite imaging and Google maps,
[31:48] Speaker 3: where where you say okay, a new bridge built on
[31:51] Speaker 3: this road, that single piece of information is very critical
[31:55] Speaker 3: for your entire military operations in that area, for armored
[31:58] Speaker 3: troops to move, for infant to plan, or ultimately to
[32:02] Speaker 3: break that bridge if they want to, or air force
[32:04] Speaker 3: to break over. So this is how it was a
[32:06] Speaker 3: very tedious, slow process. But within these things you would
[32:11] Speaker 3: always find a gem you could actually pick up and
[32:13] Speaker 3: turn it into a good intelligence input. But now that
[32:17] Speaker 3: all that is, it's not that it has gone away.
[32:19] Speaker 3: The value of human intelligence will never go away, yes,
[32:22] Speaker 3: because because it is worth its value in gold. However,
[32:28] Speaker 3: this sat imaging, Google map, it's a two way thing, right.
[32:31] Speaker 3: If we can see, they can also see, and in
[32:35] Speaker 3: that you are as exposed as they are. So now
[32:38] Speaker 3: you have not only you have to think like that
[32:41] Speaker 3: that it's not a happy situation. Actually that at least
[32:46] Speaker 3: from an ind guy's perspective. And tell you we just
[32:48] Speaker 3: hate exposure of any kind. So while we can celebrate
[32:52] Speaker 3: that we can see more into the enemy space, but
[32:55] Speaker 3: we just hate when we get also because of the
[32:57] Speaker 3: same technology, so you have to now start balancing it
[33:00] Speaker 3: out somehow. So there is sad satellite, and there is electronic,
[33:04] Speaker 3: and there's human and oskull you know, there's people use
[33:08] Speaker 3: it on rumorant rumint That's really funny actually, because the
[33:12] Speaker 3: thing is, how can you use two words in the
[33:14] Speaker 3: same thing. If it's a rumor, it's a rumor, right,
[33:18] Speaker 3: And if it's intelligence, it is Intellience is very fight
[33:20] Speaker 3: solid rock solid thing, intelligence, hamiary pass. The other thing
[33:24] Speaker 3: is a rumor. So rumant is kind of an oxymoronic thing.
[33:29] Speaker 3: I don't know how many people like it, but personally
[33:31] Speaker 3: I don't. So all these things get to it. So
[33:35] Speaker 3: just to rumorant is like people try to gauge the
[33:39] Speaker 3: mood of gossip. Okay, okay, key article rumors, a part
[33:43] Speaker 3: of the tech is done, that's not that's just a rumor.
[33:47] Speaker 3: Actually that's gossip. That's you can't associate into work with, right.
[33:52] Speaker 3: So but I don't know. It's a fancy of fancy
[33:56] Speaker 3: corporate where people keep coming up to terms, so they
[33:59] Speaker 3: do that. But the solid thing is human, satellite, electronic,
[34:04] Speaker 3: All these things you depend a lot on them. The
[34:06] Speaker 3: phones made a big change in it tower. So we
[34:11] Speaker 3: I mean, as you see every in every investigation nowadays,
[34:15] Speaker 3: key called crime patrol makes seconds to a year. There's
[34:22] Speaker 3: not even need to look further, but yes, we all
[34:25] Speaker 3: it's very many years back. The triangulation method was actually
[34:29] Speaker 3: used by signal so that was signal intelligence. So all
[34:34] Speaker 3: these things help in creating a scenario, a picture, a perspective,
[34:39] Speaker 3: something that the operational forces can work on. So all
[34:44] Speaker 3: these inputs are sent to coming back to the original
[34:47] Speaker 3: question that you ask, all the field commanders would send
[34:50] Speaker 3: all these inputs whatever they can gather, whatever they had,
[34:53] Speaker 3: whatever they can gather in that time frame, back to
[34:56] Speaker 3: the mill am I direct it in army headquarters. The
[35:02] Speaker 3: officers there would turn that into a single picture, turn
[35:07] Speaker 3: that into a crisp note. Actually, this is the place
[35:10] Speaker 3: you have to go. This is the time frame you have.
[35:13] Speaker 3: These are the best timings because if you don't give
[35:16] Speaker 3: the time all these terrorists could be out training or something,
[35:19] Speaker 3: or you've just gone for a bath or walk around
[35:21] Speaker 3: the jungle or something like that. You have to have
[35:24] Speaker 3: them there. So all these are the part of that
[35:26] Speaker 3: information that you pass it on to air force ormod
[35:29] Speaker 3: and they take on after that, the Air Force guys,
[35:34] Speaker 3: the flyboys, whatever.
[35:35] Speaker 2: They want to do after that, their right and that,
[35:39] Speaker 2: like you said, I think that what you just said
[35:41] Speaker 2: right now that I think is perhaps the most crucial
[35:43] Speaker 2: aspect of the world of intelligence, the analysis part.
[35:46] Speaker 3: Of it, and that's where I want to focus a bit.
[35:50] Speaker 2: And also, like I said, talk a bit about your tenure,
[35:53] Speaker 2: am I, the decade that you've served anywhere in the army.
[35:57] Speaker 3: But after a quick.
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[36:46] Speaker 3: Macha.
[36:47] Speaker 2: Before break, you know, we've talked about what if your
[36:50] Speaker 2: high hypothetical, so you told us about what a crisis
[36:53] Speaker 2: situation in again, second, am I, would be when something
[36:56] Speaker 2: like what happened in Pelgram, a couple of you or
[36:58] Speaker 2: days ago happens. I want to sort of drawn out
[37:01] Speaker 2: from your experience of being an mi I for a decade,
[37:04] Speaker 2: And of course you can't tell us specific missions that
[37:07] Speaker 2: you're part of, specific things that you may or may
[37:10] Speaker 2: not have done, but rather what a day for you
[37:14] Speaker 2: would look like. And from that, what I want to
[37:18] Speaker 2: understand is what is operating in intelligence, specifically in Jump
[37:24] Speaker 2: and Kashmir. Actually, Like when we went on the break,
[37:32] Speaker 2: I said that I think, apart from gathering the intelligence,
[37:35] Speaker 2: analyzing it perhaps is one of the biggest and most
[37:39] Speaker 2: challenging tasks. And the reason I kind of also relate
[37:41] Speaker 2: with it is because in journalism as well, where I
[37:45] Speaker 2: work on the desk.
[37:46] Speaker 3: So for me, our.
[37:48] Speaker 2: Primary job for people who work on the desk in
[37:51] Speaker 2: any media media house is you get bombarded with lots
[37:55] Speaker 2: of information from your different sources. You have your own reporters,
[37:58] Speaker 2: you have social media, you have other publications. So you
[38:02] Speaker 2: have all this information with you when you're supposed to
[38:04] Speaker 2: sign sort of sift through it and find that headline.
[38:07] Speaker 2: And now for us, it is at headline that will
[38:09] Speaker 2: click and when I say click, it is that that
[38:10] Speaker 2: will get us the most number of viewers that will
[38:12] Speaker 2: get us the most number of readers. I can sort
[38:15] Speaker 2: of picture that with you as well when you were
[38:18] Speaker 2: talking about what it's like in being intelligence, because I
[38:21] Speaker 2: think that's sort of what you're doing as well. That's
[38:22] Speaker 2: shifting to information and finding that point that will click
[38:26] Speaker 2: for you. Click means getting that pinpoint accurate information that
[38:30] Speaker 2: you know would help you find that particular person that
[38:32] Speaker 2: you're looking for, just one example. So, yeah, tell us
[38:36] Speaker 2: what a day of typical day for you would be
[38:39] Speaker 2: like when you were in an emilitan intelligence and yes,
[38:41] Speaker 2: especially what is it like being in this field, especially in.
[38:45] Speaker 3: So you rightly differentiated. There's a piece so peace time
[38:50] Speaker 3: soldiering and then there's a field right, peace time soldiering.
[38:53] Speaker 3: You are very focused on your counterit tilted and stoles
[38:55] Speaker 3: because you're not, you know, terrace. You're hunting around. So
[39:00] Speaker 3: for the priority becomes that who's floating around together our information? Right,
[39:06] Speaker 3: who's trying to take pictures? Who's trying to send data?
[39:08] Speaker 3: Now there's the last couple of decades there have been
[39:11] Speaker 3: the cyber angle to it, so you have to scan
[39:13] Speaker 3: with your resources available, you scan that also, you try
[39:18] Speaker 3: and take Obviously you have source friends in place, or
[39:22] Speaker 3: sources here and there, somebody coming in who's suspicious and
[39:26] Speaker 3: staying around Kent or doing something. You try and gather
[39:28] Speaker 3: that you meet with your team. You decide a day
[39:31] Speaker 3: to day think like a morning briefing kind of a thing.
[39:34] Speaker 3: Today we will do this, you will go there, we
[39:36] Speaker 3: take a update on where where are we on. It's
[39:40] Speaker 3: like office. So but the not that the stakes are
[39:44] Speaker 3: any lesser because but then everybody moves out. You do
[39:49] Speaker 3: your thing, and but the summary has to be logged
[39:53] Speaker 3: every day. That's the thing. Whatever you do, logging is
[39:58] Speaker 3: the most important thing. So anybody who whose averse to
[40:00] Speaker 3: paperwork will not do good in intelligence. You have to
[40:04] Speaker 3: write a lot. You have to read a lot. Because
[40:09] Speaker 3: I came to know I don't I have a suspicion
[40:12] Speaker 3: on you. Today. I came to know you live in
[40:16] Speaker 3: X society. Okay, great, I came to know this input
[40:19] Speaker 3: I went and checked some surveillance. But then I allies
[40:23] Speaker 3: you took a car and went to some other society,
[40:26] Speaker 3: and then I somehow figured out spoken and then that
[40:29] Speaker 3: your actual house is there. That was your maybe in
[40:32] Speaker 3: law's house, right, So yes, that data has to go
[40:35] Speaker 3: in that very day with what do I make out
[40:38] Speaker 3: of it that if this guy is giving impression of
[40:41] Speaker 3: that he stays there actually, but what is the reason?
[40:45] Speaker 3: What could be the possible reason? And then you list
[40:47] Speaker 3: out this is what I suspect him from, this is
[40:50] Speaker 3: what he's showcasing, and this is what it would mean.
[40:53] Speaker 3: So I'm going to follow these four aspects of his
[40:56] Speaker 3: activities and figure out where he is moving most maybe
[41:00] Speaker 3: take a month or two when you figure out, okay,
[41:02] Speaker 3: he is actually a car thief, so that is right.
[41:07] Speaker 3: So then once your path is a little accurate, then
[41:10] Speaker 3: you start viewing that person or that suspect in that mode.
[41:14] Speaker 3: And once you've reached a place where you've said, yes,
[41:17] Speaker 3: this is what it is, then you prepare a case
[41:19] Speaker 3: and submit to you higher authorities and that means the
[41:23] Speaker 3: commander of the formation or the senior in your intelligence chain,
[41:27] Speaker 3: and they decide what is to be done with that.
[41:29] Speaker 3: So they come back to you, let's build it some more,
[41:32] Speaker 3: or they say, okay, good, this is a case we
[41:35] Speaker 3: share with desidency or for this operation or with police
[41:38] Speaker 3: or something like that. So that's what a day to
[41:40] Speaker 3: day work looks like. It's all about gathering inputs, turning
[41:45] Speaker 3: them into reports, and writing your analysis, logging data. That's
[41:51] Speaker 3: like any office, any regular office, but when you're in field,
[41:56] Speaker 3: it means no office hours because you're dealing with obviously,
[42:01] Speaker 3: you can't imagine office in terrorism, right or office work
[42:04] Speaker 3: or there. You're spending a lot of time outside. A
[42:08] Speaker 3: very critical differentiator between regular forces and int is we
[42:15] Speaker 3: don't move around with a lot of people, right. That's
[42:17] Speaker 3: a big risk also, but that's a necessity. I can't
[42:21] Speaker 3: like if an officer is moving from place A to B,
[42:24] Speaker 3: there's only a small convoy. They move around with their
[42:28] Speaker 3: q AT, a quick quick reaction team or their subordinates
[42:32] Speaker 3: and at least fifteen twenty people will always move in
[42:35] Speaker 3: a team. That Those are the requirements of field. Everybody
[42:39] Speaker 3: knows that. But when ain't guys move out there actually
[42:41] Speaker 3: mostly alone, totally alone on a bike or a car
[42:45] Speaker 3: or switch source or two of you just hanging around
[42:48] Speaker 3: here and there. It's a very high risk stop that way,
[42:51] Speaker 3: and we have had some really phenomenal legends in AM.
[42:55] Speaker 3: I it's very sad their operations will never come out,
[42:59] Speaker 3: but genuinely devils. I can't even begin to tell you
[43:03] Speaker 3: that admiration I have for these people. There are a couple
[43:06] Speaker 3: of these officers who have done fantastic operations. Actually this
[43:11] Speaker 3: is not that's the thing the social media, the Bollywood,
[43:16] Speaker 3: the people who tend to write, they inflate the story
[43:22] Speaker 3: so much for sensationalism. These are guys who've actually done
[43:26] Speaker 3: that right and again they'll never come and speak about
[43:29] Speaker 3: the operations. So I worked with them. I've learned from them,
[43:35] Speaker 3: I've done operations with them, and it gives you a
[43:38] Speaker 3: sense of you know, humble le that you know there
[43:43] Speaker 3: these are the legends of intelligence world and how humble
[43:45] Speaker 3: they are actually about everything. So that is what I
[43:49] Speaker 3: was very lucky to work with these guys that did
[43:51] Speaker 3: great operations and you tend to copy them that you know,
[43:55] Speaker 3: I should also work like that. So in field they
[43:58] Speaker 3: would meet with the sources. The source say is that
[44:01] Speaker 3: there is something which is on top of that mountain,
[44:04] Speaker 3: right you will go. There is never a This is
[44:08] Speaker 3: what Indian Army is known for. We barely brush off
[44:11] Speaker 3: our input. Every day, millions of soldiers are walking out
[44:15] Speaker 3: on just a hint of information. Some villagers who come
[44:19] Speaker 3: and say I heard there are five guys terrists who
[44:23] Speaker 3: were in that jeneral. Great, let's go. We'll have hundreds
[44:26] Speaker 3: of soldiers marching around all directions. We don't brush off inputs,
[44:30] Speaker 3: so you find somebody there are not It's a different thing,
[44:35] Speaker 3: but I'm very glad that this camaraderie or this coordination
[44:42] Speaker 3: between the military intelligence and the operational forces exists an
[44:46] Speaker 3: army where generally nobody brushes off input. They are always
[44:50] Speaker 3: ready to do that operation, and hence it becomes moral
[44:53] Speaker 3: responsibility of the I guys also to actually work up
[44:57] Speaker 3: to a level where the operation is successful. That's you
[45:01] Speaker 3: know that, it's a two way kind of thing. So
[45:04] Speaker 3: you spend a lot of time chasing around information, even
[45:07] Speaker 3: if sometimes you're out for days, staying here, staying there
[45:12] Speaker 3: actually very highest job that way, especially in feed you're
[45:15] Speaker 3: I mean, you are just taking him on a facial
[45:17] Speaker 3: This is a source who said you can stay at
[45:19] Speaker 3: this or that hotel. So keep working on that, and
[45:22] Speaker 3: then you can come back again to your bread and
[45:25] Speaker 3: butter writing, report writing, analysis, and then you turn it
[45:29] Speaker 3: into a report and share it with your bosses and
[45:32] Speaker 3: then they decide what is to be done.
[45:34] Speaker 2: Yeah, can you tell us that analysis part of it?
[45:39] Speaker 2: When you have so much information in front of you.
[45:43] Speaker 2: Is there a process through which you kind of, you know,
[45:46] Speaker 2: build that strand or build that thread that makes sort
[45:49] Speaker 2: of a coherent narrative from all that that is there
[45:53] Speaker 2: in front of he Or is it as simple as
[45:55] Speaker 2: like you just said, is reading reading reading and then
[45:58] Speaker 2: falling back on your training and your instinct kind of
[46:00] Speaker 2: you getting a darrative out of it.
[46:01] Speaker 3: It's a lot of gut feeling and experience trains you
[46:06] Speaker 3: for it. So it's all about this. Both you and
[46:10] Speaker 3: I could join am I. We could pass that probation
[46:12] Speaker 3: or boss might feel do not bring them in. But
[46:17] Speaker 3: the thing is I could still be a huge failure
[46:19] Speaker 3: and you could actually be aware and by failure and
[46:21] Speaker 3: means my analysis is bad, right, but your analysis spot
[46:27] Speaker 3: on and that only comes from aptitude. You just cannot
[46:31] Speaker 3: lease that just there is no training available to that.
[46:34] Speaker 3: For that. You have to have that mind. Either you
[46:37] Speaker 3: are able to see through or you're not. I can
[46:39] Speaker 3: tell you can send four four guys to a shop,
[46:44] Speaker 3: four different intelligence operators to a shop, and that shop guy,
[46:48] Speaker 3: that shopkeeper is selling drugs underhand. Maybe none of them
[46:52] Speaker 3: will be able to figure out by his behavior talking
[46:55] Speaker 3: he will not expose to them that, but there will
[46:57] Speaker 3: be one guy who will figure out he does that,
[47:00] Speaker 3: he'll make a deal also, he will buy also, he'll
[47:03] Speaker 3: get approve also, and he'll come back with the operation.
[47:06] Speaker 3: So that is very in built. And that comes from
[47:12] Speaker 3: having a knack of faith in your gut, feeling of
[47:14] Speaker 3: faith in your instincts. And lastly, I would again say
[47:19] Speaker 3: absorption of information. If you talk a lot and you're
[47:23] Speaker 3: not open to listening, you're not open to observation, you
[47:26] Speaker 3: will miss out a lot. You have to be very
[47:29] Speaker 3: sharp in understanding what he's saying, what does it mean.
[47:34] Speaker 3: The CPU has to work very fast. If he's saying
[47:36] Speaker 3: that I gave the shopkeeper, he would say that to everybody.
[47:43] Speaker 3: Are you able to take it ahead? Are you able
[47:45] Speaker 3: to take it to a conversation where he says, That's
[47:50] Speaker 3: where the difference comes. We don't use force. We are.
[47:55] Speaker 3: I mean that's actually a If you have to beat
[47:58] Speaker 3: somebody to get information, you're not a great professional, to
[48:01] Speaker 3: be honest, because the thing is when you when I'm
[48:04] Speaker 3: beating you and break somebody's finger or kneecap, the pain
[48:08] Speaker 3: is enormous. Nobody can survive that pain. You can do
[48:12] Speaker 3: it for a couple of hours maybe, but once it
[48:14] Speaker 3: gets to extreme, nobody can survive. You will say something
[48:17] Speaker 3: to save yourself. You will say he will know that
[48:21] Speaker 3: it will take three days for these guys to go,
[48:24] Speaker 3: and at least till that time, I'm out of pain.
[48:27] Speaker 3: So the strength of an interrogator, which is also part
[48:30] Speaker 3: am task, is to be sharp enough to have carry
[48:35] Speaker 3: out good investigations and interrogations. And I don't believe too
[48:39] Speaker 3: much in beating up. I mean some I don't know.
[48:42] Speaker 3: There are stories which I have never been part of
[48:45] Speaker 3: such things. But you have to be skilled. Actually, that
[48:51] Speaker 3: skill comes from practice, and by practice you get experience,
[48:56] Speaker 3: and you get a lot of experience by making bad
[48:58] Speaker 3: decisions good decisions. So figure out over a while that
[49:01] Speaker 3: what is lacking in me? I thought these guys are
[49:05] Speaker 3: like this, but it turned out they weren't. Where did
[49:07] Speaker 3: I analyze it wrong? What part of this guy's personality
[49:12] Speaker 3: did I pick up which made me think he's like that?
[49:14] Speaker 3: But so it's a continuous self improvement. Also, right, everybody
[49:18] Speaker 3: you're making I'll give you a small how to process
[49:21] Speaker 3: information and your listeners would actually use that in real life. Also,
[49:27] Speaker 3: whenever somebody tells you something, there are two parameters to
[49:29] Speaker 3: judge that who is telling it and what is he telling?
[49:34] Speaker 3: If Dave Tomorrow tells me last week when I was
[49:37] Speaker 3: in Japan, I jumped from a satellite, Like what the
[49:41] Speaker 3: possibility in this is they could have been in Japan.
[49:44] Speaker 3: The possibility that you took us skydive from satellite is impossible.
[49:48] Speaker 3: That's how fine. I'm speaking in extremes, but you get
[49:50] Speaker 3: my part right. You downgrade the information that this information
[49:53] Speaker 3: cannot be tested. Second, I meet somebody who has I
[49:58] Speaker 3: know for a fact that he he has never traveled
[50:00] Speaker 3: outside India. He says the same thing. So not only
[50:04] Speaker 3: that source is untrustworthy that information, so he is like
[50:07] Speaker 3: downgraded to D four. He's like totally finished. So whenever
[50:10] Speaker 3: you get in foot and puts you alphanumeric, immediately quote
[50:15] Speaker 3: them in your mind that this is a one, this
[50:18] Speaker 3: is a three, this B four. This That helps you
[50:20] Speaker 3: process the information in your mind faster. That helps you
[50:23] Speaker 3: put pointers key. These are the good points. I should
[50:27] Speaker 3: work on them. So, uh, you are able, you get
[50:32] Speaker 3: used to it, and you are able to not store
[50:36] Speaker 3: useless data in your mind. Was happier delet but focus
[50:40] Speaker 3: on that one thing that he will say that will
[50:42] Speaker 3: make your day. That is critical. You can be sitting
[50:45] Speaker 3: with somebody of five hours. He will not tell you
[50:47] Speaker 3: anything important. A third person listening might think it's very important.
[50:53] Speaker 3: Know you what you are looking for might just be
[50:55] Speaker 3: like a half hour sentence and that is a one
[50:59] Speaker 3: so you converse for that. You hang around. A lot
[51:03] Speaker 3: of work is just hanging around. It's a very boring
[51:08] Speaker 3: job that way. You're sitting there just just observing things
[51:13] Speaker 3: because you're looking for a When they say there is
[51:16] Speaker 3: movement around, what does it actually imply? Actually, if you
[51:20] Speaker 3: think of it, what does it mean there is movement
[51:22] Speaker 3: around that some people are moving around? How do you
[51:25] Speaker 3: judge that? That means a lot of surveillance hours and
[51:28] Speaker 3: days and you know, shift after shift to keep so
[51:32] Speaker 3: you keep shitting, looking, keep sitting and looking. Is there
[51:34] Speaker 3: something that is worthwhile? So it's as I said, slow,
[51:37] Speaker 3: tedious and sometimes gets boring because you're just sitting there
[51:41] Speaker 3: doing nothing. So but your mind is always on. You're
[51:45] Speaker 3: looking for that little bit of observation or information or
[51:49] Speaker 3: discussion that can help you turn that into something which
[51:53] Speaker 3: you can present to the headquarters that I thought, I
[51:56] Speaker 3: think this is happening. You should have a look at it.
[52:00] Speaker 2: Right A slight tangent. I thought of when you were
[52:02] Speaker 2: just talking, Uh, are you talking about being out in
[52:04] Speaker 2: the field and how at times it could be very unsafe.
[52:08] Speaker 2: How often was it that you had a side down
[52:11] Speaker 2: with you when you went out in the field.
[52:12] Speaker 3: Always, always, Yeah, you can't be without. That's the minimum
[52:16] Speaker 3: you should be had. But but the reason I asked
[52:19] Speaker 3: that is key at times. Wouldn't that also be like,
[52:22] Speaker 3: you know, that could be.
[52:23] Speaker 2: A giveaway if, like you know, someone sees you.
[52:26] Speaker 3: Don't carry it open. I mean, obviously I won't get
[52:30] Speaker 3: into details of but yes, you are very right in saying,
[52:34] Speaker 3: this is not like a policing job. Uh, this's not
[52:38] Speaker 3: like even so people tend to carry side arms and
[52:41] Speaker 3: they would lift their shirt around it, and so I'm
[52:44] Speaker 3: carrying by logan, we're not there. That's not a requirement.
[52:49] Speaker 3: We want to be as as invisible as possible. Like
[52:55] Speaker 3: the greatest place in a bar is to sit behind
[52:58] Speaker 3: a pillar and look at everyone. That's the greatest place
[53:00] Speaker 3: sit and drink. It's like that you just don't know
[53:03] Speaker 3: anybody looking at you. So to merge with the crowd
[53:05] Speaker 3: to be achieved. That invisibility actually takes effort. I won't
[53:10] Speaker 3: say a lot of but it actually takes some thinking
[53:12] Speaker 3: and effort. You're at a bust end. You anyway look
[53:17] Speaker 3: different from the locals. Let's say physical appearance. How do
[53:22] Speaker 3: you do that that I merge in the crowd, but
[53:24] Speaker 3: nobody looks at me because you look physically so different.
[53:28] Speaker 3: So these are the things you work on. These are
[53:31] Speaker 3: the things you would work on. How do I address?
[53:32] Speaker 1: So?
[53:32] Speaker 3: Where do I? How do I behave? You know? A
[53:35] Speaker 3: small thing can give you away, A small thing will
[53:39] Speaker 3: make everybody understand this guy is not from here. So
[53:42] Speaker 3: those are the things you work on, practice, practice, learn
[53:45] Speaker 3: every day improve your work. So it's an endless process, right,
[53:49] Speaker 3: I think we und the episode there.
[53:51] Speaker 2: Thank you so much for being on this episode. A
[53:54] Speaker 2: great chat with you, and honestly lots to learn and
[53:57] Speaker 2: lots to sort of unpack from what you what you've
[54:00] Speaker 2: hold us called me because this was the intent as well.
[54:04] Speaker 2: I wanted to understand from you what that world of
[54:06] Speaker 2: intelligence is all about?
[54:08] Speaker 3: Uh, and you give me lots to think about it.
[54:12] Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
[54:13] Speaker 2: Thanks, it's great having you, and thanks as always to
[54:16] Speaker 2: our listeners and viewers.
[54:17] Speaker 3: That's it for the Defense stores.
[54:18] Speaker 2: For more, tune in next week till they stay safe
[54:20] Speaker 2: and not cross any boundaries to the passport. Okay, kab
[54:48] Speaker 2: arch the radio, Apple podcast, Spotify audio platform, it but
[55:00] Speaker 2: about can

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