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A student of PES Engineering College, Mandya, has been arrested for passing on classified defence-related information to Pakistan. His involvement came to light when an officer in the Indian Air Force (IAF) was questioned in an espionage case.
The student, Samiullah, is suspected to have obtained the data regarding the Kiran aircraft and other aviation projects when he was doing a project for his mechanical engineering course at Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL). He e-mailed this information to his contacts in Pakistan.
The Intelligence Bureau and Karnataka's Corps of Detectives are conducting independent inquiries into Samiullah's activities. IB officials and CoD sleuths, confirming the incident, informed The Times of India on Thursday that they were surprised by the modus operandi.
Samiullah is believed also to have fed Pakistani agencies with classified information about the Krishnarajasagar dam, defence establishments in Bangalore and Hyderabad, and other vital installations.
Investigators say Samiullah belongs
to the Deendar Anjuman outfit, believed to have links with Pakistani
organisations. In fact, Adil Pasha, a grandson of the Deendar Anjuman
founder, is based in Pakistan. Anjuman was allegedly responsible
for the bomb explosions at St Peter and Paul Church in J.J. Nagar
in Bangalore in July last year, and elsewhere in Karnataka, Andhra
Pradesh and Goa.
Samiullah, along with Abdul Rehman,
was picked up in December 2000 in connection with the church explosion.
They were assisting A.R. Sait, a former BEML employee who was the
principal conduit of secret information to the Inter Services Intelligence
(ISI).
The undercover business came to light when Hassan-uz-Zaman, a junior warrant officer in the IAF, was arrested in northern India last year in an espionage case. Zaman revealed details of Deendar's involvement and Sait's role in the spy network, of which Samiullah was an important member.
Samiullah tried to evade arrest by removing his photograph from the college register. However, the sleuths got hold of his picture from the records of the Common Entrance Test (CET) Cell.
Samiullah is the son of a vegetable vendor on Mysore Road in Bangalore. There are reports that he had also sent a copy of the ``helicopter brake drum'' to the ISI.
Samiullah was a meritorious student
in his early college days and secured an engineering seat through
CET. A possessive and reserved person, he had stayed at the
Muslim hostel in the Gandhinagar mosque at Mandya. He had few friends
and led a reclusive life.
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