CHANDIGARH: A resident of Pathankot in Punjab has been arrested by the Punjab Police on charges of spying for Pakistan-based handlers by allegedly transmitting live CCTV footage from the Pathankot-Jammu highway corridor.
Police suspect the live surveillance feed was being used to track sensitive troop and convoy movement along National Highway-44 connecting Punjab with Jammu & Kashmir.
Sources said that during preliminary investigation, the accused, Baljit Singh, a resident of Chakk Dhariwal village, confessed that he had installed an internet-based CCTV camera at a shop near a bridge on the Pathankot-Jammu highway in January to allegedly monitor the movement of Army and paramilitary forces and transmit the live feed to handlers based in Pakistan.
Police said he was also receiving directions from an unidentified person based in Dubai and had been paid Rs 40,000. The CCTV camera was recovered from his possession.
Last month, Punjab Police had busted two ISI-backed espionage modules allegedly using China-made solar-powered CCTV cameras to transmit live feeds of sensitive military locations to Pakistan-based handlers.
Earlier in May, a CCTV camera mounted on a pole in Model Town in Kapurthala was found to be part of an alleged ISI-controlled spy network monitoring sensitive military locations. The state police’s counter-intelligence wing had then arrested three suspects linked to two ISI-backed modules accused of spying on military establishments using solar-powered CCTV cameras. The footage was allegedly transmitted live to Pakistan-based handlers through mobile applications.