According to the reports, an Indian Army soldier of Meerut Cantonment has been caught and several others detained by the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terror Squad on the charges of espionage activities carried out on the directions of the infamous ISI. The arrested jawan was stationed in the Army’s Signal Regiment in Meerut Cantonment.
The arrested soldier was a resident of Uttarakhand, India. He has been serving in the Indian Army since last 10 years. Army Intelligence Unit already had an inkling of his involvement in espionage activities and hence he was kept under surveillance from last 3 months. According to them, he was in constant touch with his Pakistani counterparts since last 10 months. He has shared ultra-secret and sensitive information with ISI handlers on Whatsapp group as per the sources.
In last one month, there has been a spurt in the arrest of ISI agents in India, especially those who worked in India’s Defense sector. A youth named Nishant Agrawal was arrested from Nagpur’s Brahmos Unit on October 8, 2018, for allegedly selling defence secrets about India’s missile systems to his Pakistani ISI handlers. Nishant had been working in Nagpur’s Brahmos Aerospace Pvt. Ltd’s missile research centre in Nagpur for the last 4 years. He was wheedled into sharing the critical information about the missile systems with Pakistani counterparts by offering him a bait of $30,000 IT job in Canada. The investigation also revealed that Nishant was contacted using Facebook accounts of ‘Neha’, ‘Sejal’ and ‘Pooja’ to trap him. Uttar Pradesh ATS has refused to comment on the links between the latest arrest with the Brahmos Unit spy case, whose investigation is underway.
In September this year, Uttar Pradesh ATS team had arrested a BSF Jawan, Achutanand Misra, a resident of Madhya Pradesh’s Rewa district, for sharing vital information about India’s defence preparedness with ISI lackeys. He was “honey-trapped” by a woman claiming to be a journalist into sharing information about unit operational details, police academy and training centre. A few months back, a person named Ramesh who worked as a cook in an Indian diplomat’s house was arrested by the Jammu and Kashmir military Intelligence Unit and the Uttar Pradesh police from Pithoragarh for bugging the house and passing off the information to the ISI. Last year, in March 2017, Aftab Ali was arrested for running an espionage racket in Uttar Pradesh.
The recent arrests of the Pakistani spies have led to a conclusion that Pakistan’s ISI is aggressively trying to make inroads in India’s defence sector, with the moles being either ensnared with the use of “honey-trap” or lured by a prospect of making big money. The arrests also signify Indian Security Agencies’ agility and coordination in busting espionage rackets and nabbing the traitors but they will do well to deploy preventive measures that dissuade vulnerable Indians from joining the enemy ranks.
