The Delhi police have arrested a Rajasthan-based visa agent in connection with the alleged Pakistan espionage ring busted earlier this week.
Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ravindra Yadav said the accused Shoaib was arrested on Friday after being brought from Jodhpur.
It is alleged that he was in touch with Mehmood Akhtar, the now expelled Pakistan High Commission official who is accused of being the recipient of military secrets, for the past few years.
Police said they will try to recover data from a ‘phablet’ purportedly seized from Shoaib’s possession. He had allegedly tried to damage the device when police in Jodhpur detained him on Thursday.
“Shoaib’s claim is that he stayed at the hotel while the other two went to the zoo for handing over documents. When he saw that the mobile phones of the other two were switched off, he sensed something was amiss,” said Mr. Yadav.
Shoaib’s family has a clothes shop in Jodhpur. He was involved in his family business and was also working as a passport and visa agent.
“Shoaib visited Pakistan at least six times. His maternal grandparents live there,” said Mr. Yadav.
Another police officer said that Shoaib had come in contact with Maulana around one-and-a-half years back and lured him into collecting vital information about installations of army and paramilitary forces on India’s Western Border that Gujarat and Rajasthan share with Pakistan.
“We had sent a request to Jodhpur Police about detaining Shoaib and on Thursday evening he was detained,” said the officer.
Mr. Yadav said that some documents and a phablet were recovered from Shoaib.
“There were some classified documents recovered from him. A phablet was also found with him. He had tried to damage the phablet so that the data cannot be recovered but we will try to retrieve the information,” said Mr. Yadav. He was produced in the city court which sent him to 12-day police custody.
Arrest of suspected spies comes as rude shock to families
The arrest of two persons in New Delhi on Thursday, on charges of spying for Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) has come as a rude shock to their families in the dusty and sleepy town of Nagaur in Rajasthan, which has made headlines in the past only for Jat politics. The centrally located district of the desert State was never on the radar of intelligence agencies.
The two suspects, Maulana Ramzan Khan, 39, and Subhash Jangid, 35, were close friends and had reportedly travelled together in the past to different cities on business. Khan ran a cloth store in Bassi Mohalla while Jangid had a grocery shop in front of the Qureshi Masjid in the same locality.
Normal neighbours
The residents of the town, who immediately recognised the duo when their identity was disclosed by the Delhi police and circulated on social media, said it was shocking to know that persons living next door and leading normal lives had been accused of being a part of an espionage ring. Moreover, their alleged connections with the ISI had been revealed at a time when India’s relations with Pakistan are far from cordial.
According to Khan’s neighbours, he originally belonged to the Barmer district and shifted to Nagaur two decades ago. “He was earlier an imam at the Tigri Masjid. When he was removed from there, he became a caretaker of the Ahl-e-Sadat Masjid and was teaching children coming to the mosque,” said a neighbour.
The police visited Khan’s house on Friday to look for objectionable material and seized his passport, which was issued about nine years ago. Police have also prepared a list of friends and relatives of the two suspects for further investigation.
Contested elections
Interestingly, Jagid, hailing from the Inana village, had contested the 2013 State Assembly election as an independent candidate from the Khinwsar constituency in the Nagaur district. He polled only 1,939 votes, while the seat was won by sitting MLA Hanuman Beniwal.
As per Jagid’s election affidavit, his total assets were worth Rs. 3.12 lakh, while Rs. 1.24 lakh was listed under the name of his spouse, whom he did not name. He dropped out of Trimurti Higher Secondary School in Nagaur after completing Class 9 in 2006.
Father disowns son
Jagid’s father, Hari Ram, who retired as a physical training instructor in a school, told a local television news channel that his son would return home on time and never kept bad company. “This has come as a rude shock to us. We have discipline in our family...If I had known about his connections, I myself would have handed him over to the police or shot him.”
According to Jagid’s neighbhours, he had run into a heavy debt after the Assembly election and shifted to Nagaur to set up his business. Both Khan and Jagid had left together for Delhi earlier this week, after informing their family that they were going to purchase goods to stock their shops for Diwali.
