Author: Aloke Tikku
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: June 1, 2004
URL: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1040601/asp/nation/story_3316539.asp?headline=Voter~then,~Pak~spy~now~+]~-->
Abdul Sami lived in Gandhi Nagar,
Bhopal till last week, had a driving licence and a job as a data entry
operator at a multi-national bank franchisee.
Like many others, he voted in the
Lok Sabha elections. Only, he should not have. Abdul was, after all, a
Pakistani national, spying for the Inter-Services Intelligence.
Security officers say Abdul's arrest
represents more than just the arrest of another Pakistani mole in the country.
It proves instead how easy it is to obtain documents that are accepted
as proof of nationality in India: a ration card, driver's licence, voter's
identity card. Abdul had them all.
The ISI zeroed in on Abdul - Mohammed
Sajid Munir back in Pakistan - early last year. A resident of a small town
bordering Rajasthan, Abdul was wanted for murder and was on the run. This
is when the ISI approached him, promising to settle him in India if he
agreed to do its bidding. It was an offer Abdul couldn't resist.
Trained for four months from May
2003 onwards at a Karachi safehouse, Abdul was launched in October that
year. Armed with a Pakistani passport, Abdul flew to Dhaka where a Pakistan
high commission employee introduced himself as Farooq and took his passport
away.
He was handed a ration card instead.
Abdul was now Samir Kumar, a resident of House 195 A, Sector 2, Rishi Nagar
in Hissar, Haryana, having been smuggled through the India-Bangladesh border.
But just a few days in Bhopal, Abdul
realised he no longer needed the Hissar card. He had found an elderly man,
Abdul Salam, almost blind in both eyes and with little money to survive
on and convinced him to adopt him as a son. In return, Abdul undertook
to pay him about Rs 500-600 every month.
Within a month, Abdul had a ration
card and a driving licence issued from the RTO Bhopal. He got a job as
a data entry operator - the ISI had given him computer lessons besides
teaching him the tricks of the trade - with a Citibank franchisee.
A few months later, Abdul obtained
a voter's ID card well in time to vote to decide India's next Prime Minister.
He was also about to get married to a local girl on May 25, but was arrested
by Madhya Pradesh police hours before the wedding.
Security officers say Abdul is not
an exception. Three days after he was arrested, Jaipur police caught another
Pakistani national, Ejad-ul-Hassan, alias Imran. He too was a Pakistan
spy launched from Bangladesh, having been handed a Hissar ration card at
the Pakistan High Commission in that country.
