Mohammed Saqlain Umar Dawood booked for espionage and waging war against nation

Accused was in touch with the Pak Army, ISI

Ahmedabad: Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) on Sunday nabbed an alleged Pakistani spy Mohammed Saqlain Umar Dawood, 22, from Jamnagar. ATS sources claimed the accused was in touch with either the Pakistani Army or Pakistan’s Spy Agency, Inter- Services Intelligence (ISI).

“The name of one Pakistani national Kishore alias Savai Jagdishkumar Ramvani has emerged during the investigation. Mohammed Saqlain had called up Ramvani on his WhatsApp number several times,” said a senior ATS official. The official said they are trying to probe if a sleeper cell is active at a time when India is holding its Lok Sabha elections.

“We have booked the accused for espionage and waging war against the nation,” said a senior ATS official. ATS sources told the Mirror that during technical surveillance, they came across a sim card purchased by one Asgar Aaji Modi of Jamnagar.

“Asgar had activated the sim card number on his mobile phone and had activated WhatsApp calling by obtaining an OTP and sending it to one Labhshankar Maheshwari of Tarapur in Anand district of central Gujarat,” said the official.

“Later following Maheshwari’s instructions the phone was delivered to Kishore in Pakistan through his sister Sushila who visited Pakistan some time ago,” said an ATS official. Gujarat ATS said the WhatsApp number was then used by ISI agents to call their sleeper cells in Kargil - over which India had waged a war against Pakistan after it tried to infiltrate it in 1999.

“The ISI agents also pushed malware through an examination link into the phone of an Air Force Jawan named Santosh alias Sintu Sitaram Bhatia who is based at a highly sensitive air base in Jammu and Kashmir. They thus tried to unofficially infiltrate the computer system, putting national security at risk.

We registered an offence against Mohammed Saqlain, Labshankar and Asgar under section 121-A, 123 and 120 B of IPC and section 43,66,66F (1) (b) of the Information and Technology Act,” a senior ATS official said.

(With Agency Inputs)