Army’s vigilance, intelligence network thwarted Pakistan’s continuous spying, attempts to collect sand. Jaipur News – Times of India

Jaipur: Even after 25 years of the nuclear tests conducted at Pokhran Field Firing Range on May 11, 1998, Pakistan still tries its best to spy and collect sand from the site to analyze it.
,operation power‘ – the code specified for the test – was conducted at the tail-end of the firing range. Tight security is on at the spot. To reach the spot, one has to pass through four guarded gates as the entire area is under the surveillance of the Indian Army.

Pokhran’s firing range hosts army activities and trials throughout the year, making it an exceptionally sensitive area. By targeting Pokhran, ISI has created many sleeper cells which are trying to gather information. However, strict surveillance by the police and other Indian security and intelligence agencies has always thwarted the plans of the ISI.
In the last few years, more than a dozen spies and suspects have been caught in connection with the Pokhran range information to ISI.
S. Sengathir, ADGP-Intelligence, said smugglers earlier used mobile phones and social media for espionage activities. Now government officials and common people are targeted through honey trap by ISI operatives for strategic information.
He said that last year also a campaign was launched to expose espionage activities and many people involved in suspicious activities were caught.
The first nuclear test ‘Operation Smiling Buddha’ was conducted at Pokhran Buddha Purnima On May 18, 1974. After a gap of 24 years, three more nuclear explosions were carried out on May 11, 1998. Coincidentally, that day was also Buddha Purnima.
‘Missile Man’ and former President Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam He is said to have stayed in secret for over two months at the Khetolai Field Firing Range in Jaisalmer to give the final touches to Operation Shakti in 1998, along with two other scientists. This covert operation surprised even the US intelligence agencies. It was a failure of the head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that he did not know about the nuclear tests in India.
then cia director george tenet In his book ‘At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA’, he admits that the nuclear tests in India in 1998 surprised the US. He wrote that when the CIA learned about India’s preparations for a nuclear test in 1995, they forced India to cancel the plan. Tenet wrote that the 1998 nuclear test was the biggest failure on their part because the western region of India was out of range of their satellite cameras that day.