Lucknow: Lucknow Police on Wednesday claimed to have arrested an alleged Pakistani spy.
Lareb Khan, a Karachi resident, had been running a placement agency in northern Lucknow under the alias 'Tasim Azim' for two years with the ultimate aim of planting moles in the Indian army, officials said.
"His ultimate aim was to first establish the credibility of his placement agency. He was to then call in Pakistan nationals, get them fake documents and place them in the Indian Army. However, he could not get to the part of the plan as we captured him before," said Bua Singh, Director General of Police, Uttar Pradesh.
Khan was eyeing army cantonments in Lucknow and Jhansi for his plans, added Singh.
The police recovered from his possession documents and photographs containing sensitive information about the Indian Army.
Khan said he received extensive training from Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) in 2004 before taking a rather long route to Lucknow via Bangladesh capital Dhaka, Kolkata and Mumbai.
"There was a written test, after which I got selected to the intelligence services. They made me undergo a 3-month training at the intelligence office in Karachi, which was like an orientation to Indian population, religion, languages and mostly the Indian Army like ranks, promotion procedures etc," Khan said.
He said the ISI helped him acquire fake travel and identity documents.
India has accused the ISI of sponsoring "cross- border terrorism" and orchestrating the 17-year-old militancy in Jammu and Kashmir and providing vital help in carrying out violent attacks across the country.
It has been accused of having a hand in the July 11 Mumbai serial blasts on the city’s suburban railway service. Pakistan had however, denied any involvement of its spy agency.
Created in 1948, the Islamabad headquartered ISI was, in the early days of Pakistan a modest intelligence gathering agency for the armed forces.
It gained importance and power later, particularly during the 1979 to 1989 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and is now rated one of the best organised intelligence agencies in the developing world, seen as the Pakistani equivalent to Israel's Mossad.
ISI has been in the spotlight after the devastating September 11, 2001 attacks in USA for its possible knowledge about suspected masterminds.
In recent years, the ISI has attracted criticism within Pakistan for promoting "terrorism" and using its expertise to prop up the Taliban regime in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.
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