‘He used to go to Pakistan to meet wife’: Brother of Delhi scrap dealer held by UP ATS on espionage charge

The ATS said Harun was working closely with an employee from the Pakistan High Commission. It said Harun was in contact with family in Pakistan, for which he needed visas to visit them. Harun would contact the High Commission employee, who would use his bank accounts to deposit money, it said.

The ATS also said Harun would receive money from the employee for sending him people who were seeking visas to Pakistan. Additionally, Harun would also receive commissions, which the ATS claimed, were used to fund anti-national activities.

The agency said the High Commission staffer has been declared “persona non grata” by the Government of India and ordered to leave the country.

Standing in front of his three-storey house in Seelampur, Harun’s brother, Wasim, told The Indian Express Friday, “My brother was financially the weakest among us. We are four brothers. He ran a scrap shop from our house.”

Wasim was present when policemen in plainclothes arrived on Wednesday, asking Harun to accompany them to their car for questioning. “They asked him if he had recently been to Pakistan. My brother explained he had gone to visit his wife, who lives in Gujranwala… They told him not to worry and asked him to enter the car. Then they snatched his phone and took him away,” said Wasim.

Wasim and his family called the district police for help, only to be informed late Wednesday night that his brother was in Noida with the ATS. “The next day, around 8 am, we received a call from the ATS, asking us to come to Lucknow to meet him,” he said.

A group of relatives rushed to see how they could help. “My brother, who met Harun, said he only kept saying that he was innocent and was being framed,” said Wasim. Lawyers informed the family that Harun had been booked under BNS sections 148 (conspiracy to wage or attempt to wage war against the Government of India) and 152 (acts endangering sovereignty, unity and integrity of India).

Wasim said Harun did have family in Pakistan. He said his brother had married twice — first in 2007 to a woman in Delhi with whom he had three children, and then recently to his cousin in Pakistan. “It happened some time during the [Covid] lockdown,” said Wasim.

“He hid it from us at first. But when we noticed he was making frequent trips to Pakistan, we asked him what was going on. He told us he had married our paternal cousin because her husband had divorced and abandoned her… he wanted to support her and her family,” he said. Harun wanted to bring her to Delhi, he said, but did not succeed.

Wasim denied that his brother was involved in the visa business: “Our family owns only two houses. If my brother were making so much money selling visas, wouldn’t he buy a house for himself and his family?”