India announced yesterday it was expelling a Pakistani visa official for suspected spying after he was briefly detained carrying sensitive defence documents, with tensions between the neighbours already running high.
New Delhi police said the official had been recruiting Indian nationals for two-and-a-half years to spy for Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in return for cash.
“Delhi police crime branch has busted an espionage racket run by a kingpin working in the Pakistan high commission,” said Ravindra Yadav, joint commissioner of police on crime.
The official, named as Mehmood Akhtar, was detained on Wednesday with documents in his possession on Indian troop deployment along the border, Yadav told a press conference in Delhi.
“They used to meet once in a month at a pre-decided place to exchange documents and money,” he said.
Akhtar was later released, he added.
Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar summoned Pakistan’s High Commissioner Abdul Basit to inform him of the decision to expel the official within 48 hours.
“FS (foreign secretary) summons Pak High Commissioner to convey that Pak High Commission staffer has been declared persona non grata for espionage activities,” foreign ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said on Twitter.
“We have definitely busted an espionage ring and the ringleader has been asked to leave within 48 hours,” Swarup later said at a press conference.
Akhtar initially posed as an Indian national and produced a fake identity card, but later admitted he worked for the Pakistan High Commission.
In Islamabad, the Pakistan foreign ministry said the official was detained for three hours on “false and unsubstantiated” charges of espionage before he was returned to the mission.
“We condemn the detention and manhandling of our diplomatic official,” a statement said.
“This act clearly reflects Indian actions to shrink diplomatic space for the working of the Pakistan High Commission,” the statement added.
It noted that Akhtar’s detention violated the Vienna Convention.
But Indian spokesman Swarup said: “He was treated with utmost courtesy” in keeping with diplomatic norms and handed over to a diplomat of the Pakistan mission on Wednesday itself.
Akhtar reportedly said that he joined the Pakistan Army’s Baloch Regiment in 1997 and was deputed to the Inter Services Intelligence
in 2013, according to the Indian spokesman.
Akhtar was placed at the mission in New Delhi in September 2013 where he was working as assistant to the trade counsellor.
Tensions between India and Pakistan have soared since a raid last month on an Indian army base in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir near the de-facto border killed 19 soldiers, the worst such attack in more than a decade.
India blamed militants in Pakistan and said it had responded by carrying out strikes across the heavily-militarised border, although Islamabad denies these took place.
Indian and Pakistani troops regularly exchange fire across the Line of Control in Kashmir, but sending ground troops over the line is rare.
Yadav said two Indian nationals from Rajasthan were also arrested, and that Akhtar had planned to meet his Indian co-conspirators at the Delhi Zoo to exchange the information and cash.
He said Akhtar was carrying maps that showed the deployment of Border Security Forces (BSF) and army soldiers.
“A list of jawans (soldiers) posted at the border along with soldiers who had retired from service was also recovered,” Yadav said.
Another Indian national was arrested late yesterday from Jodhpur in Rajasthan on charges of helping the Pakistan official, a senior police officer said.
High Commissioner Basit lodged a “strong protest” yesterday with the Indian foreign ministry and said the detention of the official contravened diplomatic conventions, a Pakistani diplomatic source said.
“The High Commissioner denied the accusation and said we (the commission) never engage in activity that is incompatible with its diplomatic status,” the source said on condition of anonymity.
The official has been given 48 hours to leave the country, the source said.
The expulsion comes as two Indian soldiers died yesterday during two separate gunfire incidents on the border with Pakistan in Kashmir.
Police officials pose with Subhash Jangir and Maulana Ramzan in New Delhi yesterday, after they were arrested for alleged espionage activities for Pakistan.
