Calcutta, May 10: A former Indian Army lance naik arrested five days ago on charges of espionage confessed to his ISI links in court today.
The military intelligence wing of the Eastern Command had picked up Jan Mohammed Mansoori from Jogbani in Araria district of Bihar.
At Alipore court, Mansoori said he passed on information about the signals, communication and movements of the Indian forces.
Military sleuths had been looking for Mansoori for seven years since he gave them the slip while being taken from Jabalpur to Jalandhar by train.
In his 40s, Mansoori was working with a madarsa when arrested.
Behind the closed doors of judicial magistrate Pijush Bose’s chamber, he described how he collected information about troop movements during his stint with the Corps of Signals in Jabalpur and pass it on through coded messages to an ISI module based in Karachi.
“Mansoori told us he had confessed to his crime, including his knowledge of how the ISI operates in India and Nepal, before the judicial magistrate,” a senior official of the Eastern Command said.
On Monday, when Mansoori was produced before an additional chief judicial magistrate for a confession, he directed him to a judicial magistrate.
Originally a resident of Bihar, Mansoori joined the Corps of Signals in 1988.
Probing into an espionage racket within the force based in Jalandhar eight years later, the military intelligence stumbled upon Mansoori’s name. The army sleuths were then interrogating one Ikramuddin alias Mohammed Anwar, a key member of the racket.
A former Pakistan Army soldier, Ikramuddin entered India in 1991 to run the espionage racket.
In May 2002, he was arrested and has since been sentenced to life by the Kanpur district court.
A senior Eastern Command officer said: “It appears that Mansoori first went to Pakistan for training with the ISI in 1995. Since his return, he has been instrumental in passing on vital defence documents as well as recruiting other ISI agents. We’ll need more time to grill him.”