India Accuses 3 Former Officials of Ties to Suspect in Spy Case

Three senior government officials who resigned suddenly on Monday had accepted free trips to Taiwan from an Indian businessman charged in an espionage case involving the United States, Taiwan, West Germany and Israel, according to a government complaint filed here Tuesday.

The Indian government charge sheet against New Delhi businessman and anti-Communist crusader Rama Swaroop, 55, also listed eight names that prosecutors say are U.S. diplomats and contacts for Swaroop.

Following standard practice, the U.S. Embassy here had no comment. No Americans have been formally charged with espionage in the three-month-old case, in which Swaroop is accused of attempting to obtain secret information for foreign countries by granting favors and free trips to government officials and members of Parliament.

Resigning from the government of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on Monday were ministers of state Chandulal Chandrakar and K.P. Singh Deo, and the chairman of the electronics commission, M.S. Sanjeevi Rao. Chandrakar and Deo are both elected members of the Indian Parliament in Gandhi’s ruling Congress-I Party. Five other members of Parliament also accepted free trips to Taiwan from Swaroop, the government says.

The government charge sheet contends that Swaroop, a former trade representative for Taiwan, was particularly active in 1977-79 during the prime ministership of Morarji Desai. The complaint alleges that Desai’s son, Kanti Desai, twice went to Taiwan on trips arranged by Swaroop and in exchange, provided unnamed U.S. diplomats with information about a meeting between his father and Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev.

Several of the names listed in the charge sheet are leaders of opposition parties. Since he was arrested last October, Swaroop has repeatedly asserted that he is being persecuted for his anti-Communist political views.

His championing of the Afghanistan resistance movement and his criticism of the Indian government’s neutrality on the Afghan issue have won him friends in conservative U.S. circles. Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub, head of one Washington conservative group supporting the Afghan cause, the U.S. Council for World Freedom, described Swaroop’s arrest as “a blow not only to Afghan freedom fighters, but for the cause of individual liberties all around the world.”