Espionage case: Pakistan mission employee under scanner

A Pakistan High Commision employee is under the scanner of Delhi Police probing an espionage racket in which an alleged ISI operative and a serving BSF personnel have been arrested.
The serving BSF head constable Abdul Rasheed was today 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 said

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

"Is there any involvement of any senior officers?," Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjay Khanagwal asked the police during the hearing on its application seeking Rasheed's remand. Delhi Police told the court it had not yet found complicity of any officer but the probe was on.

Khan told the police he was going to Bhopal where he was supposed to meet another PIO handler to seek information from him about the unidentified source who could easily arrange his visa, said Yadav.
Khan was, however, intercepted in Delhi on Thursday on way to Bhopal where he was also to attend a religious congregation and recruit youths for the espionage racket, he said.
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 said.

The Delhi Police is also trying to track the money trail from Pakistan to India -- routed through the Middle East, to pay off spies operating in a suspected pan-India network.