Jamnagar: Gujarat Police’s Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), acting on a tip-off from Military Intelligence, apprehended an individual for allegedly aiding the Pakistani agency ISI in spying on Indian defense personnel. The arrested individual has been identified as Mohammad Saqlain (22), a resident of Bedi village in Jamnagar.

Saqlain purportedly provided an activated SIM card to Labshankar Maheshwari, a former Pakistani citizen who acquired Indian citizenship and was previously arrested by the Gujarat ATS in 2023 on charges of espionage. Following Maheshwari’s arrest, Saqlain went into hiding. However, law enforcement officials continued their pursuit, eventually tracking him down after a six-month-long investigation.

It is reported that during a visit to Pakistan in 2022, Maheshwari and his wife were introduced to Saqlain in Jamnagar by a relative named Kishor Ramwani. Upon returning to India, Maheshwari contacted Saqlain, who provided a SIM card, and Asghar Modi, who activated it. Modi also supplied Maheshwari with the OTP needed to activate WhatsApp on the said SIM. In mid-2023, the SIM card was sent back to Pakistan through Maheshwari’s sister, who handed it over to Ramwani. ATS officials revealed that the SIM card was utilized either by a Pakistani defense officer or an intelligence agency officer who dispatched malware to an Indian Air Force personnel stationed in Kargil, compromising his cellphone.

“The ISI agents also attempted to infiltrate the computer system by sending malware through an examination link to the phone of an Air Force Jawan named Santosh alias Sintu Sitaram Bhatia, stationed at a highly sensitive air base in Jammu and Kashmir. This posed a significant risk to national security,” the official stated.

Mohammed Saqlain, Labshankar, and Asgar have been booked for espionage and waging war against the nation under sections 121-A, 123, and 120 B of the IPC, as well as sections 43, 66, and 66F (1) (b) of the Information and Technology Act. DeshGujarat