India Spy Sold Secrets for 25 Years : Says He Gave Data to France, 2nd Western Nation for $1 Million

The alleged leader of the biggest espionage ring in India’s history startled a court today by confessing that he sold vital national secrets for over 25 years to France and another Western nation and had made $1 million as a spy.

Businessman Coomar Narain, liaison officer of a Bombay textile company, did not name the other Western nation in his three-hour court session before Metropolitan Magistrate P. K. Dham, said a court official who asked not to be named.

At no time in his confession did he name “the United States or any of the Soviet Bloc of nations,” the official said.

Narain told the judge in a statement that he had been “collecting information concerning India’s politics, defense and economy for the last 25 years and passing them on to foreigners.”

Didn’t Explain About Money

He told the judge that he made nearly $1 million during his quarter-century of spying but did not reveal where he kept the money or how it was spent.

The confession was startling because it meant that India’s most guarded secrets had been looted and sold to foreign countries for most of India’s 36 years of independence.

Newspaper reports had said the spy ring had been operating for two to three years.

Fifteen suspects have been arrested so far in the case, the biggest spy scandal in Indian history.

Breach of Security

The spy network, publicized last month by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, has breached security in his office as well as in the office of the Indian president, the Defense Ministry and other government departments.

Narain confessed that he was collecting classified information from Indian officials and passing it on “to some people of diplomatic level,” the source said.

“Narain mentioned three foreign nationals” to whom he was supplying secret information, the official said. “Two of the foreign nationals belonged to France and the other to another Western country,” he said, without naming the second nation implicated.

The Indian government has ordered two French diplomats to return home, including Ambassador Serge Boidevaix, who was given until March 2 to leave.

Attache Expelled

India also expelled French deputy military attache Lt. Col. Alain Bolley, who allegedly was the recipient of many of the top-secret documents procured by Narain.

Narain told the court that he received the top-secret documents from Indian officials who went to his office in central Delhi. He made photocopies of the documents, returned the originals and passed the secrets to his foreign contacts, the official said.