Babloo

Lucknow, Oct. 27: The latest allegation of an ISI plot in Uttar Pradesh comes not from police but a jailed don.

Babloo Srivastava claims that Pakistan’s spy agency is out to kill him because, spurred by his “nationalist” feelings, he had helped Indian intelligence during his underworld days.

In a letter to chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav from the Bareilly jail, the don alleges that Independent MLA Mukhtar Ansari and Jaunpur-based gangster Abhay Singh are part of the conspiracy. Ansari himself is in Ghazipur jail in connection with a BJP leader’s murder last year.

Babloo complains his security falls far short of the kind of protection the Centre had promised a Singapore court when he was extradited from that country in 1995. A copy of the letter has been sent to the Singapore embassy in Delhi.

Babloo hasn’t clarified which intelligence agency he had helped, but the ISI has long been alleging that India’s Research and Analysis Wing had links with the don. RAW denies this.

Sources say Babloo’s association with Indian intelligence began after he and Chhota Rajan had walked out of Dawood Ibrahim’s gang following the 1993 Bombay blasts.

Babloo has claimed to the police that he had helped Rajan carry out a string of “anti-ISI operations” in Nepal in 1994-95. This allegedly included the assassination of Nepal MP Dilshad Mirza Beg, whom they considered close to the ISI.

“I am a nationalist…. Because of my determination to assist (Indian) intelligence sources in finishing the anti-national forces in the country, both Dawood and the ISI want to eliminate me with the assistance of some local influential group,” his letter says.

The don, handed a life term by a Delhi court in July for a 1992 murder, has to be regularly produced in Lucknow in another case. He often has to spend the night in Lucknow jail.

“They (the ISI) want to kill me during my frequent trips to Lucknow from Bareilly by road,” Babloo told reporters on his way to the court today.

His letter alleges that his police escort has been downgraded from 16 personnel to eight, and he is denied adequate security in the Lucknow jail, which teems with Abhay Singh’s men.

Babloo issues a veiled threat, saying any attack on him would threaten “peace in the country”. The implication is his loyalists, scattered among many gangs in the state, would go on a revenge spree.

State police chief Bua Singh said Babloo was being provided the sort of security the extradition terms demanded.