BHOPAL: Ritesh Khullar, one of the 11 accused arrested by anti-terrorist squad (ATS) in connection with racket of spying for Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI, was only an employee staff of Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card selling shop in Gwalior. He has been branded as an ISI agent with links to Pakistan. The shop owner, however, has not been arrested.
The ATS had arrested the 11 accused for allegedly running an international call racket that helped Pakistan’s ISI to spy on India’s military operations. All the 11 men were booked under provisions of the Indian Telegraph Act, besides Section 122 and 123 of the IPC, which deal with collecting arms, information and other things for waging war against the country. They were allegedly operating parallel telephone exchanges using Chinese equipment and SIM-boxes.
Sachin Khular, father of Ritesh Khullar nabbed by the ATS, lamented stating that ATS arrested Ritesh while he was just a staff member to sell the SIMs to customers. Owner is Harpal Singh Rajput. Ritesh has been accused of selling SIM cards in bulk. The accused are either SIM card seller or run their call centre at different places. There are six call centres in Bhopal.
Advocate Vinod Mishra who appeared in the court for Ritesh said, “The ATS should book Harpal Singh who is owner of the SIM card selling shop but it is total injustice that staffer has been arrested and not the shop owner. Ritesh’s father told me that owner is different man who is still out of ATS net but his son Ritesh has been arrested in connection of spy racket.”
