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One more ISI agent nabbed in Pune

Michael Gonsalves in Pune

The Pune crime branch sleuths on Monday picked up a fifth spy following the arrest earlier of the main Inter Services Intelligence agent Sayyed Ahmed alias Mohammed Desai.

Desai's prolonged interrogation revealed that he had been cultivating people from various defence establishments in Pune.

"The fifth person, Chaman Shaikh, was picked up from an ammunition factory in Khadki," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Surinder Kumar said.

The four others who were nabbed for assisting Desai were David Manuel, a clerk with the Ammunition Depot, Dehu Road, near Pune, and his three cronies Ajay Bhalerao, Rajesh Kamble and Farid Shaikh.

Police said intense interrogation of the accused revealed that Manuel had been approached by the ISI directly as they were not satisfied with the quality of intelligence Desai was providing.

Police said Desai arrived in India in 1996 and married a distant relative and settled down in Kolhapur, from where he would travel all over Maharashtra to build up contacts, posing as a garment exporter.

In Pune he was assisted by Abu Shaikh, a distant relative who helped him set up initial contacts with David Manuel, DCP Kumar said. He added that Rakesh Kamble, one of the arrested, was working for the office of the Controller of Defence Accounts as a peon.

Desai had undergone six months intelligence gathering training in Pakistan after he was hand picked by the ISI.

Kumar said several incriminating documents, including ones on Ammunition Supply Depot at Dehu Road and an Indian and a Pakistan passport has been seized from Desai.

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