Chennai: The NIA team that questioned suspected ISI spy Arun Selvarajan for the second time during the last one month to know his possible links with Sakir Hussain, another Pakistani agent arrested in April this year, indicated that the two were operating as separate units and had no links.
Selvarajan, a Sri Lankan who was running an event management firm in the city, was allegedly hired by his ISI handlers posted at the Pakistan High Commission in Colombo, and was supposed to spy on Indian defence establishments in south India. Selvarajan was arrested on October 9 in Chennai by the NIA.
The agency got three days’ custody of Selvarajanon Saturday.
Sakir Hussain, another Lankan who shuttled between Colombo and Chennai, posing as a textile merchant was assigned by his ISI handlers to collect details of US and Israel missions in south India.
He was also required to get information on Indian naval bases in Kochi and Vizag.
“We wanted to check if the two had any links because both were operating in Tamil Nadu at the same time. That is why we sought custody of Selvarajan again and questioned him. But so far, it looks as if they were operating as two separate units,” NIA sources said.
However investigators have found that Selvarajan was in touch on phone with Thameem Ansari, a Thanjavur man, who was arrested in Trichy for suspected espionage activities in September 2012.
Interestingly, even one month after Selvarajan’s arrest, the probe team has so far not arrested any of his associates.
There were indications that he had attained reasonable access to some security establishments like OTA, Coast Guard and NSG
posing as an event mana-ger.
Q branch personnel of the TN police, within days of arresting Sakir Hussain, secured two of his associates and seized a huge cache of fake Indian currency notes from
them.
