Suspected ISI operative arrested from Uttarakhand

Lucknow, May 24 (IANS) A suspected ISI operative, working as a cook with a senior army officer has been arrested in a joint-operation by police and army, officials said on Thursday.

The accused Ramesh Singh was picked up by the UP and Uttarakhand police teams from Didihat in Pithoragarh in Uttarakhand, Inspector General (IG) of the UP Anti-Terror-Squad Aseem Arun said.

Singh has been accused of listening to confidential information at the house of an army brigadier, who was later posted at the Indian High Commission in Pakistan, where Singh passed the information to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intellegence (ISI). The brigadier was stationed in Pakistan between 2015-17 along with the cook Ramesh Singh. 

A case has been registered against Singh, the police official informed. According to the ATS official, Singh also passed information about the 12th joint India-Nepal army exercise to Pakistan.

Arun also informed that on many occasions, Ramesh Singh went up to the India-Pakistan border from Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir and that the probe team was now trying to ascertain if he had accomplices too. 

Some documents, maps, a Pakistani made mobile phone and a laptop has been seized from the suspected operative. 

The ATS official also informed that though the arrest was made earlier, for sake of confidentiality and interrogation, the same was being disclosed on Thursday.

ATS claimed that he had admitted of selling information to the ISI and being paid back in dollars for the same. 

The accused has been produced before a court in Pithoragarh and was being brought on a transit remand to UP where he will be interrogated further to know details of his network.