Friends lists of two dubious FB accounts on ATS radar
THE ATS, WHICH GOT
AGARWAL’S SEVENDAY CUSTODY REMAND ON THURSDAY, WILL QUESTION HIM FURTHER ABOUT ISI NETWORK
LUCKNOW : Over 115 facebook account users in the friends list of two accounts ‘Neha Sharma’ and ‘Pooja Ranjan’, who are suspected to be operated by Pakistani intelligence agency ISI, are under UP Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) scanner. BrahMos Aerospace engineer Nishant Agrawal, arrested on charges of espionage in Nagpur on Monday, was in frequent touch with these two account users and shared crucial information with them.
Senior superintendent of police (SSP), ATS Jogendra Kumar said Agarwal had been brought to Lucknow on transit remand and the competent court in Lucknow had granted his seven-day custody remand which began at 9 pm on on Thursday. He said Agarwal would be questioned about the ISI’s network and other people in the friends list of the two suspicious account users with whom he allegedly shared information related to Brahmos missile.
He said Agarwal’s laptop and mobile phones that he used to pass on information to the ISI and intelligence agencies of other countries, had already been seized . He said the details of the laptop and mobile phones would also be technically examined.
Another senior ATS official said there were over 115 suspicious accounts in the friends list of the two users reportedly operated by the ISI that honey trapped Agarwal and managed to extract crucial information related to national security from him. He said there were possibilities that other users in the friends list of ‘Neha Sharma’ and ‘Pooja Ranjan’ had also shared some crucial details related to national security with the ISI.
The official said the a checklist of all users in the friends list had been prepared and every account was being verified individually. He said the ATS team had shortlisted the account users who could be helpful to other countries’ intelligence agencies in any way, on the basis of their profile.
He said the first priority in the list was those who had been chatting with the two ISI account users. He said initial probe suggested that the ISI account users mainly targeted people who could be instrumental in providing information related to Indian army, paramilitary forces and security installations. Many account users in the friends list were fake and created only to mislead others, he added.
The ATS officials had earlier said that Agarwal came on the radar while they were exploring the ISI network after the arrest of BSF jawan Achyutanand Mishra in Noida, on September 19. The BSF jawan was arrested on the charges of sharing crucial information about the armed forces and movement of troops with a facebook friend. He allegedly also chatted with a woman on WhatsApp who used a mobile number registered in Pakistan.
Another ATS official said Agarwal, 28, was suspected to have leaked information about India’s Brahmos missile and was arrested in a joint operation by the UP and Maharashtra ATS in Nagpur on Monday.
He said Agarwal was a senior systems engineer with BrahMos Aerospace, and despite being engaged in “highly sensitive work”, was “casual” on the internet and made himself an “easy target”.