My research and reporting inform me that the Indian security establishment, however, has a very loose system of auditing, one without any critical supervision. As a result, Indian agencies have fake information pouring in through their vast network, which has dramatically and adversely impacted India’s war on terror. 

Occasionally, it leads to comic situations. One time, central intelligence agencies received, and issued an alert for, a terror threat on the pilgrimage site of Sabarimala in Kerala, creating a public furore. Soon enough, though, a vigilant IB official established that a police inspector of the state Special Branch had received the information from one of his relatives, who also happened to be his paid informant. The IB official got the informant’s number and called him. The surprise call gave the man no time to prepare, and he blurted out: ‘I saw the threat in my dreams.’

Many intelligence operatives talk off the record about the absurdity of information collection along the Pakistan border. A Pakistani informant might be deliberately allowed to cross the border into India, where Indian agents pounce on him. He goes from agency to agency, feeding information, collecting his payments and liquor, if available. No one knows if those Pakistanis are genuine informants, or deliberately sent to mislead Indians. But no one dares to audit or question their information.

In the Kashmir Valley, several deaths of military personnel, especially officers, can be mapped to misleading inputs from informants, according to one veteran intelligence officer who has studied the pattern in recent years. When a military officer leaves the Valley on transfer, one of the truly valuable things he hands over to his successor are his sources.