BSF personnel, ISI operative arrested for espionage

New Delhi: The Crime Branch of Delhi Police on Sunday busted an Pakistan-sponsored espionage racket and arrested a Border Security Force (BSF) head constable for supplying classified documents to Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) through an agent.

The police have also arrested the ISI agent and are conducting raids to nab other associates.

“The suspects have been identified as Kafaitullah Khan alias Master Raja (44), a resident of Rajouri district in Jammu & Kashmir, and BSF head constable Abdul Rasheed, posted at the intelligence wing of BSF in the same district,’’ said Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ravindra Yadav.

“Khan is a handler of Pakistan Intelligence Operative (PIO) and Rasheed was one of his chief sources. The espionage racket run by them is supported by Pakistan’s ISI,” Yadav said. Both of them have been arrested under the provisions of the Official Secrets Act.

Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“On Thursday, Khan had boarded a train from Jammu and was about to leave for Bhopal. He was apprehended by a police team at the railway station there and documents having implication on national security were recovered from his possession,” said a senior police official. “Information was largely passed through email, Whatsapp and Viber networks,’’ he said.

“In 2013, Khan visited Pakistan and came into contact with an ISI agent there. He agreed to share with them secret information of the Defence forces in exchange of money,” said the official.

Khan started cultivating sources in the Army and BSF, and some of them started passing him secret papers. Rasheed was his relative and Khan roped him into the network, luring him with a share of the commission he received from ISI agents in Pakistan.

The police raided Rasheed’s residence, too, and recovered more secret and confidential documents from his premises in Rajouri district.