On Monday, a day after High Commission staffers Abid Hussain and Muhammad Tahir were asked to leave India, Delhi Police’s Special Cell also summoned a peon posted with the Indian Railway, who had allegedly been approached by Abid. (Representational)
The investigation into three staffers of the Pakistan High Commission started two months ago, after the Army’s military intelligence (MI) unit intercepted a phone call between one of them and an Armyman, who they wanted to lure into sharing information, it is learnt.
On Monday, a day after High Commission staffers Abid Hussain and Muhammad Tahir were asked to leave India, Delhi Police’s Special Cell also summoned a peon posted with the Indian Railway, who had allegedly been approached by Abid. Police said Abid pretended to be the brother of a journalist and asked him for details of movement of Army units “for a story”. Apart from Abid (42), an assistant in the Pakistani mission, and Tahir (44), a clerk, the Special Cell also picked up Javed Hussain (36), a driver.
The FIR was registered against them on the basis of a policeman’s complaint, who stated that an informer told him the three men would be coming to Karol Bagh to receive classified documents from an Indian. It was while they were returning that they were picked up. But they had been under scanner for longer. “Ever since they tried to lure the Armyman, the MI unit had been tracking them… A team of Special Cell’s New Delhi Range led by inspectors Umesh Barthwal and Neeraj Kumar was roped in and they started monitoring their activities,” a source said.
“Abid assumed several fake identities… He posed as one Gautam, the brother of a media person, and established contact with an individual working in the Indian Railways. He pretended that he needed information about train movements for his brother’s story, and was willing to pay. The real motive was to acquire information about the movement of Army units and hardware via trains,” said Additional PRO (Delhi Police) Anil Mittal.