Arrested Pakistani spies used 'pizza', 'burger' to carry out operations

Mumbai: The four men arrested for spying for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) last week used unique code language to carry out their operations.

According to a report, terms like ‘eating pizza’ or ‘having a burger’ were the kind of language used by the spies.

‘Eating pizza’ meant a rendezvous at the Ansal Plaza amphitheatre, and ‘having a burger’ meant a meeting at Pitampura mall in Delhi, the report said.

What’s more, the spies exchanged documents and received payments in the open in crowded places, often passed as they brushed past each other. The drop points include metro stations, where the stolen paper would be left on the staircase from where the receiver retrieved them.

Both ISI spy Mehmood Akhtar and his Indian associate Shoaib have revealed that they used a special USB device that extracted data from government computers in a jiffy.

Ravindra Yadav, joint commissioner (Crime), was quoted as saying that Shoaib and his associates arranged group tours to Pakistan and arranged the logistics for them for around Rs 1 lakh. The list of aspirants was given to Akhtar, who shortlisted some names. Shoaib would then visit the homes of the aspirants and enquire if there was a government servant in the family. If there was, the name would be marked in a separate register for ISI operatives to try to cultivate.

The spies were also taught how to sustain their cover. Farhat Khan, aide of Samajwadi Party MP Munnavar Saleem, who was arrested on Saturday, worked for 20 years without being busted. He has confessed to leaking documents from the time he was assisting MP Munawwar Hasan, who was killed in a car accident in 2008.

Earlier, it was reported that Khan had been working with 4 MPs since 1996, some of whom were members of parliamentary committees.

Khan’s main role was to steal Parliament related documents, committee reports and other information from the MPs and pass them on to ISI. He received between Rs 10,000 and 1 lakh for his activities, depending upon the sensitivity of the documents.

Khan was in touch with Mehmood Akhtar over the phone as well as in person.
He also worked with Akhtar's predecessors, identified as Shamshad and Fayyaz, at the High Commission.

Police are also investigating if some individuals in the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) passed on information to Khan.