Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Nov 30: Delhi Police with the help of their counterparts in Jammu and Rajouri have discovered a large trail of money from United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and Pakistan into the accounts of Kafait Ullah Khan alias Master Raja, a Government official turned Pakistan spy and sealed his all accounts in the banks even as the BSF today ordered a Court of Inquiry (CoI) into the role of its Head Constable Abdul Rashid in the racket while involvement of an Army personnel in the case is also being investigated.
Official sources told the Excelsior that Delhi Police, which had arrested Khan and later Rashid and took both of them to New Delhi, has got the accounts of Khan in the banks in Jammu and Rajouri districts sealed. The bank statements have revealed that Khan was getting Rs 20,000 every month through transactions from UAE, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
“Khan was on pay-roll of Pakistani’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which was depositing money into his accounts from different countries using its resources and contacts in Gulf,” sources said, adding Khan might have been paying a part of this amount to BSF official Abdul Rashid, who was posted in the Intelligence wing in Rajouri. Khan was posted as Laboratory Assistant in a Government school at Manjakote, Rajouri.
Police have recovered highly sensitive and prohibited photographs from the possession of Abdul Rashid, which he was reportedly planning to hand over to Khan for supplying them to Pakistan. Khan had been using Viber network, WhatsApp and some other modes of communication with Pakistan to supply them confidential information.
Only today, Excelsior had exclusively reported that militant outfits had received huge funds for sustaining militancy from Gulf nations, Pakistan and within the country. The Finance Ministry of the Government of India had asked the financial institutions including banks in both Government and private sectors to choke these transactions.
Sources said Khan was also close to an Army personnel posted in Jammu region and his activities were being monitored. However, there was no conclusive evidence against him so far.
According to sources, Khan’s sympathy for militants and Pakistan was visible as he had participated in anti-Government protests in Poonch during 2013 and 2014 and also resigned from police job to join as Lab Assistant. He was lured by Pakistan when he visited that country in 2013 and since then was working for them.
During investigation, Khan told the police that his counterpart in Pakistan had promised him huge money for passing on secret and confidential information. When Khan started doing so, he was put on a permanent pay roll and promised performance-based appraisals, sources said, adding he was regularly getting Rs 20,000 per month but investigations would reveal if he had received more money from abroad. He might have received potentially high funds through private money transfer agencies or through illegal routes.
The police are also verifying reports alleging Khan’s involvement in a human-organ trafficking racket at Jammu and Kashmir, sources said.
Meanwhile, the BSF has also ordered a Court of Inquiry into the role of Abdul Rashid, which would be held by a senior officer. The BSF was more concerned about the spying racket as Rashid was posted in the Intelligence wing of the force.
“The CoI will run independent of the Delhi Police probe. The BSF is in constant touch with the police and other agencies investigating the case,” sources said.
The BSF, they said, is trying to find out how an operative of its elite ‘G’ (intelligence wing) indulged into such activities and the extent of damage his alleged activities could have brought upon its operations in the border areas where the Border Security Force is tasked with manning the International Border (IB) with Pakistan.
Police had said Rashid was a relative of Kafait Ullah Khan alias Master Raja, an alleged handler of the Pakistan Intelligence Operative (PIO), running an espionage racket here backed by the spy outfit of Pakistan– ISI.
Both of them have been booked under provisions of the Official Secrets Act.
PTI adds from New Delhi:
A Pakistan High Commission employee is under the scanner of Delhi Police probing an espionage racket in which an alleged ISI operative and a serving BSF personnel have been arrested.
The serving BSF head constable Abdul Rashid was today remanded in police custody till December 7 by a Delhi court which questioned the police on whether any senior official of the border guarding force was involved in the case.
Kafait Ullah Khan alias Master Raja, an alleged handler of the Pakistan Intelligence Operative (PIO), was in touch with an ISI operative in Pakistan who had told him that a source in the Pakistan High Commission will help him secure visa to travel to that country, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ravindra Yadav said.
Yadav said the person in Pakistan High Commission whom the ISI operative referred to is yet to be identified but sources said it appeared he was not in the rank of a diplomat.
“Once we get some leads with further interrogation of the accused duo arrested, we shall have to approach the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) for their permission to question staff at the High Commission’s office,” said Yadav.
The Crime Branch said Kafait Ullah was running the espionage racket backed by ISI and he was to meet the spy agency’s handler in Pakistan to seek more “resources”.
“Is there any involvement of any senior officers?,” Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjay Khanagwal asked the police during the hearing on its application seeking Rashid’s remand. Delhi Police told the court it had not yet found complicity of any officer but the probe was on.
Khan told the police he was going to Bhopal where he was supposed to meet another PIO handler to seek information from him about the unidentified source who could easily arrange his visa, said Yadav.
Khan was, however, intercepted in Delhi on Thursday on way to Bhopal where he was also to attend a religious congregation and recruit youths for the espionage racket, he said.
During interrogation, Khan, a native of a village in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir, disclosed about his cousin, Abdul Rashid, who was posted as a Head Constable in the Intelligence wing of Border Security Force there, police said.
According to the police, information was largely passed on through e-mail, WhatsApp and Viber networks. Khan was given specific tasks by the PIO which were mainly related to deployment of security forces and Air Force operations.
Meanwhile, Special Task Force of Kolkata Police has seized mobile phone SIM card which, it believes, was used by the three arrested suspected ISI agents to pass on information to the ISI of Pakistan.
“They passed on information electronically and also through other means which could be manual. There can be others involved who acted as messengers,” a senior STF officer said.
As Irshad Ansari’s educational qualification and proficiency in understanding technical things were not up to the mark, his son Asfaq Ansari helped him in this, the officer said.
In fact, Asfaq’s passport details showed that he had been to Bangladesh twice in the recent past, he said.
“But the exact purpose of his visit is still unknown… We are looking into it.”
According to another STF officer dealing with the case, Asfaq met Iqbal, his father’s elder brother in Dhaka during his visits there.
“Whether the meeting was to pass on the information or to get some trainings was still not known,” he said.
Irshad’s family, hailing from Bihar, consists of five brothers and sisters, the STF officer said.
“His elder sister got married in then then East Pakistan and after the partition of Pakistan and Bangladesh, she and her in-laws went to Karachi and settled there after 1971. In 1976 Irshad’s elder brother Iqbal went to Pakistan, got married and settled there followed by his another brother Irfan who also started his own business there,” he said.
Irshad went to Pakistan in 1985 to visit them and stayed there for about three months, the Kolkata Police STF officer said.
“After that Irshad went to Pakistan in 2005 and that was when he was picked up by Pakistani agency to work for them as informer,” he said.
Irshad, a contract labourer with Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Limited (GRSE) along with his son Ashfaq and brother-in-law Mohammed Jahangir were arrested yesterday for their alleged links to the ISI.
Several documents revealing their links to the ISI, Fake Indian Currency Notes with a face value totalling Rs five lakh were seized from the three besides a hand-drawn map of the GRSE and the Netaji Subhas Dock in the city.
The trio have been booked under the Indian Penal Code sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 121 (waging or attempting to wage war or abetting waging of war against the Government of India), 121A (conspiracy to commit offences punishable by section 121), 489B (using as genuine forged or counterfeit currency notes or bank notes) and 489C (possession of forged or counterfeit currency-notes or bank-note.
Meanwhile, the arrested three were today produced in a court which remanded them to 14 days’ police custody till December 14.
Authorities at the Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Limited (GRSE) has beefed up security at the PSU facility after the arrest of Irshad, who was working there as a contract labourer.
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