ISI PICKING SMALLER INDIAN TOWNS FOR ITS HONEY-TRAPPING OPERATIONS

NEW DELHI: Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is looking to expand its honey-trapping operations by setting up home-grown networks in smaller Indian towns and villages, according to intelligence officials.

The move is being seen as a fresh challenge for Indian security agencies, particularly as the ISI is also turning to Artificial Intelligence (AI)-generated images and videos to trap targets and extract sensitive information.

An Intelligence Bureau official said the development would make it harder for Indian agencies to detect and trace such operations. For years, the honey-trap network was reportedly operated from Faridkot in Pakistan, with handlers directing recruits in India.

According to the official, the ISI had earmarked around Rs 3,000 crore between 2015 and 2019 for running the module, highlighting the scale of the operation.

The ISI is now seeking to shift these activities entirely to India. Officials said the move is in line with Pakistan’s intelligence strategy of ensuring that terror-related activities targeting India appear to be home-grown, making it harder to trace them back to Pakistan.

Why smaller towns are on ISI’s radar

An official said the ISI is unlikely to focus primarily on major cities while setting up the new network. Instead, it is looking towards smaller towns and villages, where recruitment can be carried out with less attention and people can be lured with financial incentives.

The official said the ISI had earlier recruited people in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, who reported to handlers based in Faridkot. The agency is now looking to expand its network to towns in southern India as well.

The focus, however, would remain on smaller locations where recruits can be found more easily and offered substantial amounts of money, the official said.

Porn, nudity used to trap targets

Another official said recent investigations found that the ISI had used pornography and nudity as part of its honey-trapping methods to lure people and obtain sensitive information.

The agency had also used attractive women to establish contact with targets and gather information, particularly about the Indian armed forces, the official said.

AI has now made such operations more difficult to detect. Officials said the ISI could create AI-generated images and videos of women and use them to establish contact with potential targets.

This creates a new problem for investigators because, in some cases, the person appearing in the images or videos may not even exist, making it harder to identify the accused or trace the operation.

Agniveers also under watch

The expansion of honey-trapping networks comes as Indian agencies are already dealing with a large number of such cases. Recent intelligence inputs have also indicated that the ISI has turned its attention towards newly appointed Agniveers.

Officials believe such recruits could be vulnerable because of limited awareness of sophisticated online manipulation, particularly when it comes to identifying AI-generated content.

They could potentially fall for fake images or videos without being able to easily distinguish between genuine and artificially created content.

Defence information remains the main target

According to officials, the ISI’s primary objective is to obtain information related to the Indian armed forces. Such information could potentially be used to gain an advantage during military operations or to embarrass the armed forces.

Officials said cases of honey-trapping have increased sharply since Operation Sindoor, the military operation launched in response to the Pahalgam terror attack.

The operation exposed Pakistan’s wider support network and also challenged its nuclear threats, officials said.

“The Pakistanis are hell-bent on getting back and hence these honey-trapping exercises have only gone up ten-fold so that the Indian armed forces could be embarrassed,” an official said.

With the ISI now looking at smaller towns, expanding recruitment across regions and using AI-generated content, security agencies face a more complicated task in identifying and disrupting honey-trap networks operating inside India.