ISI center in Jaffna - India sends officials to Lanka [ Friday, 05 October 2012, 04:27.45 PM GMT +05:30 ] Sri Lanka’s endeavours to strengthen diplomatic ties in the region hit a snag, with the country becoming entangled in what is being viewed as the latest spy scandal to rock the South Asian diplomatic arena.  The scandal comes in the wake of Indian intelligence reports implicating Pakistan of recruiting Sri Lankan nationals to conduct covert espionage operations in the Southern Indian State of Tamil Nadu. The disclosures have dragged Sri Lanka into the periphery of yet another diplomatic controversy with India. The spy scandal hit the headline in the backdrop of the recent arrest of an Indian national in Tamil Nadu, accused of spying for Pakistan’s premiere espionage body – Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Following reports of more ISI operatives being placed in strategic locations in South India and Sri Lankan refugees in India being recruited by the Pakistani intelligence arm, India’s external intelligence agency – Research and Analysis Wing had, in an intelligence report, urged that it was in India’s national interest to place Tamil Nadu on a state of high alert. The report had also recommended that h intelligence operations in the Sri Lankan refugee camps be intensified.