Malcolm Merlyn Posted October 29, 2016 Share Posted October 29, 2016 Quote New Delhi: India on Thursday declared a Pakistani high commission staffer, Mehmood Akhtar, in New Delhi persona non grata for his alleged involvement in espionage activities. Akhtar has been asked to leave India by Saturday. According to Bhishm Singh, deputy commissioner of Delhi Police’s crime branch, Akhtar, was apprehended in the Delhi zoo on Wednesday while he was meeting two alleged Indian spies, Ramzan Khan alias Hazrat and Subhash Jangir. “Both Jangir and Khan are residents of Rajasthan and the three would meet once or twice a month, when Akhtar would pass on information to the other two,” said Singh. Singh said that the spy module was active for more than a year and the police had been working on the case for almost six months after they got inputs that Khan and Jangir were acting as spies and passing on information across the border about the deployment of Border Security Force and Indian Army along the India-Pakistan border. Akhtar, Delhi police said, used to be a soldier with the Pakistani Army’s Baloch regiment and was recruited by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence three years ago—something Indian foreign ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup corroborated. He was posted at Pakistan’s high commission in India last year. According to Swarup, “Akhtar was intercepted by Delhi Police in the forenoon of yesterday while he was receiving sensitive document pertaining to the national security of India from two persons.” “Although initially Akhtar masqueraded as an Indian national, and even produced a fake Aadhaar card, he later admitted that he worked in the Pakistan High Commission and requested that the High Commission be informed of the developments,” Swarup told reporters. “In keeping with the accepted norms for treatment of members of the Diplomatic Mission, he was treated with utmost courtesy and handed over to a diplomat of the Pakistan High Commission soon thereafter,” Swarup said adding that Akhtar and his family had been given 48 hours to leave India. The police, the officer said, suspect the involvement of more people in the racket and are investigations are on and more arrests are likely to follow soon. When asked, Swarup on his part only said that investigations were ongoing. The development comes amid tense relations between the two countries over Pakistan’s support to cross-border terrorism and Pakistan’s accusations against India on its alleged human rights violations in Kashmir. Foreign secretary S. Jaishankar summoned the Pakistani High Commissioner Abdul Basit to the foreign office on Thursday morning after news reports that the Pakistani staffer had been detained by the Delhi police crime branch with defence related documents in his possession. Swarup said Basit was told about the staffer’s espionage activities. Declaring a staffer persona non grata means the official would have to leave his post in New Delhi. Accusations of spying and espionage activities are routinely levelled by India and Pakistan against diplomats and staffers of the other country stationed in New Delhi and Islamabad. Expulsions of staffers and sometimes even diplomats are also routine though the frequency had come down in recent years, thanks to de-escalation of tension between the two sides. Meanwhile, Pakistani high commissioner Abdul Basit rejected the charges: “Pakistan never engages in activity that is incompatible with its diplomatic status.” Adding that the detention contravened the 1961 Vienna Convention, he asked the Indian government to “ensure that such harassment does not happen in the future and strongly rejected accusations of the Indian government”. In 2010, an Indian high commission staffer Madhuri Gupta, stationed in Islamabad was recalled home and arrested for allegedly passing on information to an ISI official. Gupta was working in the press section of the Indian High Commission when she came under the scanner of Indian intelligence officials for her alleged close interactions with the Pakistani official. http://www.livemint.com/Home-Page/yWguZrCzTCUsJj8bQ4IZeP/Pakistan-High-Commission-staffer-held-2-Indians-arrested-on.html Quote One more suspected Pakistani spy was arrested on Saturday by the Delhi Police crime branch. Farhat, personal assistant to Samajwadi Party's Rajya Sabha MP Munawwar Saleem was arrested on the charges of spying for Pakistan. The details of his involvement are not known yet. Police is questioning the suspected Pakistani spy. Delhi Police had busted a spy ring involving officials of the Pakistan High Commission. Pakistani diplomat Mehmood Akhtar was nabbed by the police. Akhtar confessed that there was a spy ring being run in India to obtain defence secrets. http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/close-aide-of-sp-mp-munawwar-saleem-arrested-on-espionage-charge/1/798387.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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