GUWAHATI, Jan 9 — The gameplan of the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) of monitoring the movements of the Indian troops in the North-Eastern part of the country and North Bengal areas was foiled after a swift operation by the central intelligence agency and other security agencies. The most disturbing fact in the whole episode is that during the operations, the security agencies found out that the ISI was able to infiltrate into the ranks of the Indian Army. Security sources in North Bengal told The Assam Tribune that the whole episode came to light following the arrest of ISI agent Dishawad Mansuri alias Raju alias Dilla of Sindh province of Pakistan in Siliguri on January 4. During questioning by the intelligence and security agencies, the ISI agent revealed that he was trained in the unit number 555 of the Pakistan Army by one Colonel Kahtak, Major Ahmed and Subedar Gul Khan and was sent to India through the Punjab border. Interestingly, he came with a valid Pakistani passport in September and visited some of his relatives in the Bijnaur area of Uttar Pradesh and duly informed the State police about his stay. However, after a month or so, he vanished and the UP police was on the look out for him since then.
Sources said that Dishawad was sent to India by the ISI with several tasks — to settle down in India and obtain an Indian passport with fake papers, cultivate the North Bengal area and establish contacts and send the details to the ISI. He settled down in a hotel in Darjeeling for some time and when he spent all his money, he contacted his bosses in Pakistan. His bosses in Pakistan asked him to get in touch with a Panwala – Abdul Wari and to deposit his passport to get money through hawala transaction. Accordingly, he received an amount of Rs 19,000 and came back to Siliguri area and started the process of cultivating links in that area. He also got married to a local girl and started living in a rented house near a mosque in Siliguri. Sources said that subsequently, he received good amounts of money through hawala transactions in Kolkata and Siliguri and started establishing contacts. His contacts included two armymen, whom he described as ‘Md Azad and Rahul’.
Subsequent raids in Dishawad’s house led to the recovery of defence documents, defence maps, a computer floopy with details of vital installations half kilogram of RDX and a grenade. The recovery of classified defence documents and maps proved that the ISI agent had in fact managed to infiltrate into the Indian Army ranks. Those arrested as follow up action include one defence employee, two persons from Rajasthan and persons involved in hawala transaction of money for the Pakistani agency. Sources said that the ISI agent had a linkman in Assam but he could not be traced out, while, his linkman in Hyderabad managed to escape.
Security sources revealed that Ashawad was also asked to monitor Indian troop movement in the North-Eastern region, particularly in view of the tension in the western border and inform the same to his bosses in Pakistan. He had collected the enquiry numbers of railway stations through which Army personnel generally move and he succeeded in reporting the movement of the troops on several occasions. Sources said that he had the phone number of the Army base at Rangiya as well as the railway station in Rangiya through which majority of the Army special trains moved. The ISI agent reported back to his bosses the details of at least two Army special train movements from the North East towards the Western sector and the ISI could have easily used the militant outfits close to it to blow up those trains, sources added. Sources also pointed out that in the present system, anyone can ring up a railway enquiry number to get details of the movement of a train, which made the task easier for the ISI agent as he could carry on the task of reporting back details of troops movement to his bosses without much trouble.