Daughter8217;s beau or ISI agent?

Hingore, owner of Aman Communications Centre at Bhendi Bazaar in South Mumbai, was the main conduit for a spy ring operating in Mumbai and Pune. Hingore8217;s assignment was to fax or courier classified documents to Karachi. His accomplices, Faiyaz and Dalal, were both apparently dealing in gutkha and garments. But whenever Hingore needed to courier documents to his collaborators inKarachi, he hired their services. The papers were usually sent through some Pakistani nationals residing in the city or via Indian citizens planning to travel to Pakistan, police have discovered.

8220;Hingore would use the pretext of sending some wedding photographs to relatives in Karachi and ask unsuspecting passengers to deliver them for him. However, inserted between the pictures would be those of vital Indian defence installations or an important army base, police say. Hingore, who owned this STD booth for several years, was so sharp that even Ahmed Desai, an ISI agent arrested in Pune recently, used his services to send secrets feretted out by his moles in Pune.

Similarly, Faiyaz, a readymade garments dealer, owned a workshop in Kurla E. But lurking behind Punjabi suits and salwar kurtas was the face of a skilled espionage agent. Concealed between the folds of garment packages, he would dispatch classified documents to the neighbouring country. Dalal, a gutkha dealer, operated in a similarmanner. The quartet had been working for Pakistan for more than two years while their front businesses were only three years old. Though senior police officers are tight-lipped about the secrets which have been leaked, they are yet to find out what exactly has changed hands.

In fact, the arrest of Kamlakar Manuel and Rajesh Kamble has rattled the Pune police, with the discovery that Manuel had been working as a civilian staff member in a sensitive army establishment. Also, following Hingore8217;s arrest, the Mumbai police have launched surveillance on several suspicious STD booth owners.

Earlier this year, police had arrested three Pakistani youths suspected to be working for the ISI. The trio 8211; Sayed Husain, Mannan Husain and Rashid Ziyahi 8211; were also found to have been residing in Mumbai for several months. 8220;All three were recruited by one of Dawood Ibrahim8217;s brothers in collusion with a senior ISI officer for their activities in Mumbai city,8221; says Additional Commissioner of Police Rakesh Maria. Of thetrio, Sayed was engaged to a daughter of a Bandra-based businessman. The love affair had evolved during the Indian family8217;s visit to Karachi, where they had gone to attend a wedding.

Additional Commissioner of Police Central Region, K L Prasad, says looks can be extremely deceptive. Far from being dressed in traditional Muslim attire, ISI agents could be residing in upmarket areas and even have adopted Hindu names and wives.

In 1997, just before the parliamentary election, a series of bombs were planted at stations on the Western Railway. It was found that Maulana Hasan, the mastermind behind the plan, had come to reside in Golibar at Santa Cruz just six months before that.