ISI spy racket: Pak refutes India's claims, says 'Indian authorities haven’t approached us'

Delhi: Pakistan Foreign Office on Wednesday rejected claims that ISI or the High Commission were involved in any way in the spying racket that was busted in India recently.

“We reject allegations against the High Commission and our premier intelligence agency,” Pak Foreign Office said.

“Such allegations levelled against our intelligence agency in the past have proved to be false,” it added, as per ANI.

Pak also said that Indian authorities had not approached them.

“Media reports are baseless, unfounded,” Pak said.

On November 30, it was reported that a Pakistan High Commission employee was under the scanner of Delhi Police probing an espionage racket in which an alleged ISI operative and a serving BSF personnel had been arrested.

The serving BSF head constable Abdul Rasheed has been remanded in police custody till December 7 by a Delhi court which questioned the police on whether any senior official of the border guarding force was involved in the case.

Kafaitullah Khan alias Master Raja, an alleged handler of the Pakistan Intelligence Operative (PIO), was in touch with an ISI operative in Pakistan who had told him that a source in the Pakistan High Commission will help him secure visa to travel to that country, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ravindra Yadav had said, as per PTI.

Yadav had said the person in Pakistan High Commission whom the ISI operative referred to is yet to be identified but sources said it appeared he was not in the rank of a diplomat.

"Once we get some leads with further interrogation of the accused duo arrested, we shall have to approach the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) for their permission to question staff at the High Commission's office," Yadav had said.

The Crime Branch had said that Kafaitullah was running the espionage racket backed by ISI and that he was to meet the spy agency's handler in Pakistan to seek more "resources".

During interrogation, Khan, a native of a village in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir, disclosed about his cousin, Abdul Rasheed, who was posted as a head constable in the intelligence wing of Border Security Force there, police had said.

Also, three suspected ISI agents were arrested in Kolkata in a separate case. They were Irshad Ansari (51), a contract labourer with Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Limited (GRSE), his son Asfaq Ansari (23) and a relative Mohammed Jahangir.

(With PTI inputs)