The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has sought the Union Home Ministry’s permission to send a team to Sri Lanka as part of the investigation into the espionage case in which a Sri Lankan national, Arun Selvarajan, was arrested in Chennai earlier this week.
“In the past 10 months, two requests under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty have been sent to Sri Lanka, seeking details. The last one was dispatched in April. We have not yet received any response from the Sri Lankan authorities,” an NIA official said.
The purported revelations by those arrested in the case have indicated a conspiracy by the “masterminds,” allegedly by officials at the Pakistan High Commission in Colombo, to carry out espionage and terror strikes at vital installations and crowded places in Chennai and other parts of South India. The NIA believes that further leads from the Sri Lankan authorities can help unearth more facts.
The first arrest in the case was that of Thameem Ansari in September 2012, after which a Sri Lankan national, Muhammad Zakir Hussain, was arrested on April 29. With the assistance of intelligence agencies, the NIA then tracked down Arun. “Three modules set up by Amir Zubair Siddiqui, a former official with the Pakistan High Commission in Colombo, had been busted in the past two years,” the official said. Arun, who is wanted in Sri Lanka for allegedly harbouring LTTE members, sneaked into India about three years ago. “It is suspected that Amir Siddiqui and one of his junior officials at the Pakistan High Commission facilitated his escape.”
