Suspected ISI agent arrested in Uttar Pradesh; secret documents, prohibited maps seized

A mobile phone, a voter ID card, Aadhaar card and Rs 2,540 in cash were also recovered from his possession.

Pic Courtesy: ANI

A suspected agent of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was arrested from Bulandshahr by Uttar Pradesh Police on Friday night. The suspect, identified as Mohammad Zahid, allegedly shared vital information with the Pakistani spy agency.

According to news agency PTI, the police recovered confidential documents and maps of prohibited areas from his possession. The police arrested him after a tip off that a person in Khurja town in the district was sending secret documents, prohibited maps and other important information through different means to the ISI as an agent, said a police release.

A mobile phone, a voter ID card, Aadhaar card and Rs 2,540 in cash were also seized from him. Zahid is a resident of Khurja in Bulandshahr and had visited Pakistan twice to meet his relatives.

This comes almost a month after a BrahMos Aerospace engineer, Nishant Agarwal, was arrested on charges of spying from Nagpur in Maharashtra. He was arrested in a joint operation by anti-terrorist squad of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra police.

Nishant Agarwal was taken from Nagpur to Lucknow, where he was interrogated. He was in touch with suspected Pakistani intelligence operatives through two Facebook accounts with names – Neha Sharma and Pooja Ranjan. These accounts, based out of Islamabad, were believed to be run by Pakistan's intelligence operatives.

Agrawal was arrested from BrahMos' Wardha Road facility for allegedly leaking "technical information" to Pakistan.

An ATS officer had said that despite being engaged in "highly sensitive work", Nishant Agarwal was "casual" on the internet and made himself an "easy target". Top classified information had been loaded on his personal laptop.

The engineer has been charged under sections 3,4, 5 and 9 of the Official Secrets Act, sections 419,420, 467, 468, 120 (B) and 121 (A) of the Indian Penal Code as well as 66 (B) of the Information Technology Act.