Alleged Indian spy nabbed by agencies
Man caught allegedly working for an Indian intelligence agency.
DUNYA NEWS REPORT (HUMAIRA SAJID)
LAHORE - The police and a sensitive agency in a joint operation caught a man allegedly working for an Indian intelligence agency from a house in Kahna and shifted him to an undisclosed location for questioning.
A police official claimed that the man introduced himself as Afzal and the alleged RAW agent was arrested after an intelligence based operation was carried out by security agencies.
While giving a reference to an initial interrogation, the police official said Afzal is a resident of New Delhi, had arrived in Karachi illegally and later shifted to Lahore. However, due to insufficient evidence at the moment strict action against the accused is impossible but he is being questioned by the law enforcement agencies, the police official said.
Pakistan and India, the two nuclear-armed countries frequently accuse each other of spying on military activities. Late in December 2015, Delhi police claimed they have arrested a former Indian Air Force officer on charges of passing secrets to Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), falling victim to a “honey trap”.
In July 2012, Zubair Khan (37), a native of Kakrala Village in Badayun district of Uttar Pradesh, was arrested with several Indian Army documents from the Kalindi Kunj Park, alleged to be working for Pakistan Intelligence agency reported times of India.
Most recently, in the early hours of January 2, 2016 the terrorist who struck at the airbase Pathankot is alleged by the Indian Police as an Indian national working as an agent of Pakistan s spy agency the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). The police said Irshad Ahmed was working undercover as a manual worker at the Indian Army s 29 Division Headquarter in the Mamoon Cantt in Pathankot, where terrorists attacked on air force base last month.
Speaking to a Pakistani news channel, the former President and COAS General Musharraf said that both India and Pakistan were victims of extremists and accused the New Delhi government of putting pressure on Islamabad over terrorism. He said Pakistan was also suffering from what had happened in Pathankot.
"Terrorism is prevalent in both India and Pakistan," said Musharraf. "We are also victims of the same so we should not overreact to what happened in Pathankot. Yes, of course we want to control such incidents, but one should not get hyper over such incidents." Musharraf said.
Musharraf accused India of turning to Pakistan every time a terrorist attack happened; while he claimed thatIndia too host extremists in parts of the country. He said that there had been a rise in "disgruntlement" among India s Muslim community since Narendra Modi came to power in 2014.
As a counterargument, India s opposition party has lambasted Musharraf over his comments, accusing him of not being in a position to offer any authoritative opinions on such matters. The Congress Party s leader Panna Lal Punia accused the Pakistani government of not taking any action against the perpetrators of the Pathankot incident amid false media reports that Pakistan had rejected evidence provided by Indian officials about the terrorist attack.
In past, the intelligence based agencies of Pakistan also got their hands on several Indian spies working undercover and disclosed important information. The infamous Ravinder Kaushik alias “Black Tiger”, who was commissioned in the Pakistan Army and soon promoted to the rank of Major, was also an undercover RAW agent providing assistance to India. During that time he converted to Islam and married a local girl Amanat, fathering a son with her. However, in September 1983, he was caught when Inayat Masiha, sent by RAW to get in touch with him, inadvertently blew his cover to Pakistani forces upon interrogation. Kaushik was then captured and sentenced to death for spying, but the sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment.
According to an expert on Indo-Pak relations, the constant arrests of Indian RAW agents from Pakistan points to the involvement of Indian undercover intelligence officers engaging in espionage activities in grave violation of their diplomatic status.
