Did Pak man cook up ISI spy story?

Ahmed is basically a bookie. He was a cloth trader till 2015, and is only a 10th pass. He is under medication for neurological problems.

Government officials said on Saturday they are almost certain that a man who turned up at the Delhi airport a day earlier and identified himself as a hit man of Pakistan’s ISI is not a spy but had cooked up the story to gain asylum in India.

Ahmed Mohammed, 38, arrived on a Dubai-kathmandu Air India flight with a stopover at the Indira Gandhi International Airport on Friday morning before he approached a moneychanger and queried how to get an Indian visa. Later, he told the FRRO staff at the airport that he was an ISI spy and wanted to give up spying and stay in India.

Mohammed was questioned by officials of India’s domestic and external spy agencies, and a decision will be made on Monday on whether to deport him to Dubai or inform the Pakistan high commission to give him consular access.

Indian officials tapped into sources in Dubai and other friendly intelligence agencies to verify Mohammed’s identity and claims. “He is basically a bookie. He was a cloth trader till 2015, and is only a 10th pass,” a source at the Intelligence Bureau (IB), the domestic spy agency, told HT on the condition of anonymity speak on journalists.

“He is under medication for neurological problems following an accident seven months ago. He talks of illusions and does not seem to be an agent in any way.”

Mohammed carried a Pakistani passport — KF 088779 — which showed his date of birth as July 9, 1978 and his residence in Gulshan Colony of Faisalabad, the third-most populous city in Pakistan. This is the first time someone has made such a claim, in such a manner, leaving Indian security officials in a procedural quandary. There have been instances of alleged spies approaching Indian missions abroad. Mohammed is in the custody of the IB’S counter-espionage group. Usually, the IB passes along intelligence inputs to police, who apprehend suspects. But Mohammed has not violated any Indian law. He has a valid transit visa and was apprehended within immigration gate

Amid rising incidents of cow vigilantism, a driver of a pick-van is suspected to have been blinded in his left eye after he was attacked for allegedly scaring a bovine by honking horn in north Bihar’s Saharsa district.

The incident took place at Maina village under Sonbarsa Raj police station area, 250 km from Patna, on Thursday.

Police said driver Ganesh Mandal, 30, was returning home at Bochahi village in Bhagalpur from Saharsa when he came across a cow roaming on NH-107. “Mandal honked the horn so that the cow could get out of his way. Instead, the bovine panicked and ran away. This made the owner of the cow, who was nearby, furious and he rained baton blows on Mandal,” the police said.

The cow owner had been identified as Ram Dular Yadav, they added.

Mandal fell unconscious when he was hit on his left eye, the police said, adding that he was rushed to the nearby primary health centre (PHC). When Mandal, after regaining consciousness, complained that he was unable to see out of his left eye, the doctor at the PHC referred him to the government hospital at Saharsa. The patient was bleeding profusely from his left eye and the possibility of his losing vision could not be ruled out the PHC