New Delhi: A day after a cook from Uttarakhand’s Pithoragarh was arrested for allegedly working for Inter Service Intelligence (ISI), a top police officer revealed on Thursday that the man was on their radar since 2017.
Ramesh Singh, 35, was arrested late on Tuesday from his house in Pithoragarh’s Garali village in a joint operation by UP’s Anti-Terror Squad (ATS), military intelligence and Uttarakhand police.
According to Uttar Pradesh ADG (law and order) Anand Kumar, Singh came to fore in May 2017 when Faizabad native Aftab was arrested on charges of espionage. Aftab’s interrogation led the revelation of more ISI agents and since then they have been under the radar of the ATS.
The Pithoragarh native had moved to Islamabad in 2015 as a domestic help for an Indian diplomat when he leaked crucial information to Pakistan’s spy agency after being promised “hefty payment in dollars”. Singh finally came back to India in 2017 and was still asked by the ISI to share information.
“He got these dollars exchanged for rupees in Delhi to carry it further to his village,” Kumar said.
“We have retrieved a Pakistani cellphone number used for communication with ISI. We are hopeful that extraction of data from this phone will yield solid proof and information. We suspect the phone has spyware, hence, it has been sent for forensic examination,” the top police official added.
Sources said that authorities had been doing the rounds around his house 2-3 days prior to his arrest. “He was arrested late in the night on Tuesday. His family was at home when he was taken away,” the sources added.
Singh is said to have got the cook’s job after being recommended for the same by his brother, who is in the Indian Army.
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