Hyderabad: Asif Ali, the second accused in the Naib Subedar Patan Kumar Poddar honey trap case, has confessed to his links with Pakistan during interrogation, according to the police. Top police officials said Ali, 52, told them that he was married to a Pakistani woman and visits the country every year. He had been closely working with the ISI for more than two years, handling its financial transactions in India.
Ali said that he was worried about the safety of his wife and two children, who live in Karachi, and this compelled him to work as a spy.
“We are verifying how they psychologically influenced him,” said a senior police official. Following investigations, the Hyderabad police brought Ali from Meerut on a prisoner transit warrant after he was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police in August. Investigating officials found that Ali had been depositing money in the account of Poddar on behalf of an alleged woman spy who had honey-trapped the Army man.
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Poddar, who was arrested by the city police, had confessed that he had received more than Rs 75,000 for supplying classified information about the Indian Army. He met the woman spy on Facebook, and exchanged the information for money and nude photographs.
Though Ali deposited the money into the Army man’s account, they did not know each other. Poddar, who was attached to the 151, MC/MF detachment, Secunderabad Railway Station, was arrested by city police in the first week of August for violating the Official Secr-ets Act by passing on classified information regarding the Indian Army to a Pakistani agent.
Officials revealed that Ali was married in 1986, and they have two children, a boy and girl. “He used to stay there in the initially, and later used to visit them. He also has his family roots in Pakistan. ISI agents got in touch with him and offered him money to work for them. He has been working for them for many months,” said a senior police official.
