People's Democracy

ISI Suspects Arrested In Murshidabad

B Prasant

BASED on four months worth of close observation, the Bengal police apprehended on November 18, four members of a suspected spy ring run by the Inter-services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan.  The four were taken into custody from Jalangee and Domkal in the Murshidabad district.  The arrests were made after the police had managed to tap into the long and detailed conversation the four had over telephone with their controllers in Bangladesh and Pakistan. 

According to police sources, the four – Zia-ud din Ahmad Biswas, Ismat Ara Biswas, Ghulam Murtaza a.k.a. Bapi, and Hasan Habib – kept in close touch with a Dhaka-based ISI operative, Amir and passed on vital information regarding troop movements along the Indo-Bangladesh border. They also passed on information regarding the setting up of new defence installations in the border area.

The spy ring, which was set up back in 1997, utilised a Public Call Office (PCO) booth run by Hasan Habib as a ‘front’ to pass on vital defence-related information to the controllers in Bangladesh and Pakistan.  They had probably managed to elicit assistance, for quite some time now, from persons closely associated with the Indian defence establishment.

Among the documents seized from the ISI agents were a 25-page-long ‘duty roster,’ information documents on various defence installations, detailed descriptions of some Army units and their movements, sketch maps of several Air Force bases, location maps of several Army headquarters, and an information booklet on pipelines and oil fields in eastern India including several sketch maps.