New Delhi, June 17: The Indian businessman deported last weekend from Dubai for trying to sell nuclear secrets to Arab diplomats has been set free.

Akhtar Hussain Qutubuddin Ahmed, 35, was put on a Mumbai-bound flight by Dubai police on Saturday. He was detained at Sahar airport by Mumbai police and handed over to central intelligence agencies, which grilled him over the next four days.

They, however, did not find anything against Ahmed. A background check, too, did not throw up any criminal case in India against him.

Reports submitted by the intelligence agencies to the government suggest Dubai police could have acted under pressure from a retired colonel who had a tiff with Ahmed over their share in a deal.

Ahmed had told his interrogators that the retired colonel, Obaid, did not pay him his share after a deal involving recruitment of about 60 employees. Each employee had paid 1,000 dirhams for the documentation that enabled them to get a work permit.

“At best, he could be accused of trying to con people into believing that he had access to nuclear secrets...there is nothing more against him,” a senior government official said. “But there is no evidence or complaint to back this allegation either except his confessions.”

There was, however, no official word on Ahmed’s release. Sources said there would not be any as Delhi did not want to antagonise the authorities in Dubai who had gone out of their way in the recent past to deport Indian criminals and terrorists hiding there.

Lt Gen. Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, commander-in-chief of Dubai police, had announced the decision to deport Ahmed at a high-profile media conference attended by Ahmed Rashid Fahd Al Dosari, UAE ambassador to Austria and the Emirates’ representative at the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency.

Dubai had claimed Ahmed was under surveillance for more than a year and confirmed that his brother was a nuclear scientist who had delivered a lecture at a UAE university.

“We decided to arrest him and extradite him to his home country for his case to be treated in accordance with (Indian) rules and regulations. The case of this man and his brother are related to India’s national security,” Dhahi had said.