BENGALURU: In a joint operation by Military Intelligence (MI), Army’s Southern Command and City Crime Branch, Bengaluru police, a 24-year-old garment merchant was arrested in the city on Sunday for allegedly spying for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Jitender Singh, a resident of Barmer, Rajasthan was arrested from Jolly Mohalla in Cottonpet under sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) Official Secrets Act (OSA).
According to sources, the police recovered some Army uniforms from his house. “Singh has allegedly shared some sensitive photographs and details of the Army posts near the international border to an ISI officer over WhatsApp messages, audio and video calls,” said sources.
With inputs from the MI, three persons from Rajasthan including Singh have been arrested this month on charges of spying for the ISI. The earlier two arrests took place in Rajasthan in joint operations by the state police and MI, Southern Command. Sandeep Kumar (30), a gas agency owner in Jhunjhunu, was arrested on September 16 on charges of spying for Pakistan. Kumar used to provide gas connections in the Army area and had reportedly shared some sensitive information to his ISI handlers.
Pak handlers connected through WhatsApp
“A Pakistani handling officer had contacted Kumar through WhatsApp chats, video calls and voice calls and had asked for photographs of the Narhar Army camp and sensitive secret information,” DGP (Intelligence), Rajasthan, Umesh Mishra had stated soon after Kumar’s arrest. On September 10, a Railway Postal Service worker, Bharat Bawri (27) from Khedapa in Jodhpur district of Rajasthan was arrested on charges of espionage.
“Bawri was reportedly honeytrapped by a woman agent of the ISI and he was allegedly leaking confidential and strategic information of the Indian Army to her,” Mishra had added. In another security alert from the MI, Southern Command, the Anti- Terrorist Cell (ATC) of the CCB had arrested two persons who had allegedly set up an illegal telephone exchange in Bengaluru and were allegedly converting international calls into local calls. Ibrahim Pullatil (36) from Malappuram district of Kerala and Gowtham V (27), a native of Tiruppur district in Tamil Nadu, were arrested and the police had seized 30 SIM box devices and more than 900 SIM cards from them. The accused had installed SIM box devices at six locations in BTM Layout.