A 60-year-old man who pretended to be a scientist from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) has been found to have received crores of rupees in foreign funds for sharing sensitive nuclear data, according to a report by NDTV. The man, identified as Akhtar Hussaini, was arrested last month by the Mumbai Police. He had been travelling across India while falsely claiming that he was a BARC scientist.
Over a week-long investigation, the police recovered more than ten maps and some documents, which seemed to contain information pertaining to nuclear weapons. Originally from Jamshedpur in Jharkhand, Hussaini was living with different identities for years. Officials said they seized a number of fake documents from him, including passports, Aadhaar and PAN cards as well as a fake BARC identity card. One card identified him as Ali Raza Hussain, while another bore the name Alexander Palmer. His brother, Adil, was also arrested in Delhi as part of the case.
According to the Mumbai Police Crime Branch, the Hussaini brothers began receiving money from foreign sources as early as 1995. In the beginning, they were paid in lakhs, but after 2000, the amounts reportedly ran into crores. Investigators suspect that the payments were made in exchange for secret blueprints and data from BARC and other nuclear facilities.
Police also discovered that Akhtar maintained a private bank account that had seen several suspicious transactions. They have asked the bank for complete transaction details to trace the source and amount of the foreign funding. It was also found that the brothers had closed a few old bank accounts, and the police are now checking those records to piece together the full money trail.
Investigators further believe that both brothers may have visited Pakistan and possibly had links with the country’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Akhtar was known to regularly change his identity and live in disguise. Back in 2004, he was even deported from Dubai after claiming he was a scientist carrying classified documents.
Sources said that Akhtar sold off his family home in Jharkhand in 1996 but continued using that old address on a variety of fake documents. His brother Adil introduced him to Munazzil Khan, a resident of Jharkhand, who helped them prepare two passports under new names, Hussaini Mohammad Adil and Nasimuddin Syed Adil Hussaini. Both passports had the Jamshedpur address of their family home, which was sold off nearly three decades ago.
Police suspect that the brothers used these fake identities, with forged papers, to travel abroad several times. Investigations into their activities and foreign links are still continuing.
