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Onkar Singh in New Delhi
A Washington Post report about Sheikh Omar Saeed's links with Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence has not come as a surprise to Indian intelligence agencies.
"The report simply reaffirms what we have been telling the world all along," Deputy Commissioner of Police (special branch) Ashok Chand told rediff.com.
Chand deals mainly with cases related to terrorist activities.
The Washington Post report quotes unnamed sources saying that the ISI paid for Sheikh Omar Saeed's legal expenses when he was in custody in India in connection with the kidnapping of a group of foreign nationals.
Sheikh Omar and six of his associates were arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police in 1994 when the group was holding five foreigners, including one US national, captive in Sharanpur.
The abductions were aimed to secure the release of Maulana Masood Azhar -- a hardcore terrorist and the brain behind Jaish-e-Mohammad -- from a jail in Jammu and Kashmir.
Later, Omar was released along with Azhar and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, another top militant leader, in exchange for the safe release of the passengers of IC 814 which was hijacked to Kandahar in Afghanistan.
Omar is now the prime accused in the abduction and subsequent murder of Wall Street Journal staffer Daniel Pearl.
"For five years he was in Indian jails. Now we got to find out how the money was delivered to him and how he used it," said a senior intelligence official.
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