Author: Press Trust of India
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: May 10, 2006
URL: http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=67451
A former Army man allegedly working for the
Pakistan's ISI was arrested from Jogbani in Bihar on the Indo-Nepal border
leading to busting of an espionage ring involved in passing country's defence
documents.
Jan Mohd. Mansoori, the former Lance Naik
of the Corps of Signals, was arrested on a tip off by the Army intelligence
unit and the para-military 19 Seema Suraksha Bal while trying to flee to Nepal
on May 5, top Army officials said today.
Mansoori was intensively interrogated at the
Eastern Command headquarters here.
"Vital defence documents were found on
Mansoori, a resident of Araria in Bihar," Army officials said.
They said Mansoori was part of an espionage
network run by the ISI which was unearthed in 1997 at Jalandhar.
Giving details, officials said Mansoori, who
joined the Army in 1988, was put under surveillance in 1997, two years after
he went to Pakistan on personal leave.
He was arrested in 1998 for spying from Jabalpur,
but while being taken to Jalandhar by the Army, he escaped from the train
and since then remained untraced.
To a question, officials said Mansoori recruited
ISI agents and documents seized from him gave a clear picture of the ISI activities
in neighbouring countries.
Army officials said Mansoori was recruited
to the ISI by a Pakistani Army deserter, Ikramuddin alias Md. Anwar.
"In 1991, ikramuddin was in the ISI espionage
network in India. He was arrested in May 2002 and was recently sentenced to
life imprisonment by the Kanpur the district court," they said, adding
other ISI agents in the espionage network had been nabbed.
