CRPF Assistant Sub-Inspector Moti Ram Jat, who was arrested in Delhi three months ago, allegedly shared classified information with a Pakistani intelligence operative who, in turn, was in contact with 15 other phone numbers linked to personnel in the Indian Army, paramilitary forces and the Government, according to sources in Central intelligence agencies tracking the case.
Jat was arrested on May 27 by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which was entrusted with the investigation after Central agencies uncovered that he was allegedly sharing classified information with Pakistani agents. Jat had been posted with a CRPF battalion in Pahalgam, and was transferred to Delhi just five days before the April 22 terror attack in which 26 civilians were killed.
“With the help of technical surveillance, intelligence agencies have found that apart from contacting Jat, the Pakistani operative, whose code name is Salim Ahmed, was in touch with at least 15 other phone numbers.
After scanning call detail records and internet protocol detail records, it was found that four of these numbers belong to personnel of the Army, four more to those of paramilitary forces and the remaining seven to staffers in various departments of the Central Government,” sources said.
Central agencies are currently “analysing all data to examine these communications”, the sources said.
According to sources, intelligence agencies also found that the SIM card for a phone number through which Jat was contacted was procured from Kolkata by a man who shared the activation OTP with the Pakistani operative based in Lahore. “The Kolkata man had married a Pakistani national in 2007 and shifted to Pakistan in 2014. He travelled to Kolkata twice in a year,” the sources said.
So far, the sources said, investigations have revealed that over the past two years, Jat allegedly sent several “sensitive documents” to his handler in Lahore for regular payments of up to Rs 12,000. The funds were deposited into the bank accounts of Jat and his wife from accounts in multiple locations, including Delhi, Maharashtra, Haryana, UP, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Assam and West Bengal.
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“One of the senders has been identified as Shahzad, who was arrested in May by the Uttar Pradesh ATS for allegedly passing on classified information to ISI handlers while engaging in the cross-border smuggling of clothes, spices and cosmetics. Shahzad has claimed that he once transferred Rs 3,500 to Jat after he was asked by a co-passenger in a train from Punjab to Delhi to send money to a family member. He claimed that he was given Rs 3,500 in cash by the co-passenger to make the online transaction,” sources said.
According to sources, Jat claimed that he was initially contacted by a woman who posed as a journalist in a Chandigarh-based TV channel. “After regular exchanges over phone and video calls, he began sharing documents with her,” they said. A few months later, a man — allegedly a Pakistani official — took over the conversation, continuing the ruse as a fellow journalist, the sources said.
Jat allegedly provided “multiple classified documents related to security personnel deployment, multi-agency centre reports posted on official WhatsApp groups, information of troops movement and locations of terrorist movement”, the sources said.
