Pak Man, Aide Held In WB For ISI Links

Kolkata: Ahead of the Independence Day celebration, the special task force (STF) of the West Bengal Police arrested two persons including a Pakistani national for their alleged links with ISI. The accused are Rana Rauf alias Wahab Alam and his aide Mohammad Ijaz. Rana is from Faisalabad in Pakistan while Ijaz is from Topsia in Kolkata.

Rana was caught from Habra in North 24 Parganas on Tuesday night following a tip-off. Based on his revelations, Ijaz was nabbed from his house on Wednesday. According to sources, Rana entered India illegally from Kathmandu in Nepal in 2012 as an ISI handler and then reached Kolkata by train from Raxaul in Bihar.

He later started staying at 2nd Lane in Topsia and procured a fake Aadhaar Card and an EPIC with the help of Ijaz in the name of his late father Wahab Alam. A scrutiny however revealed that the name was deleted in the Election Commission's special intensive revision of the voter's list last year.

Rana also had plans to visit Bangladesh next and fixed a tout, Pavel, to help him cross the India-Bangladesh border in North 24 Parganas illegally. The STF further found that Ijaz, who worked at a shoe factory in Topsia, visited Nepal many times in the last few years on the pretext of his job though his family members claimed that he does not have a passport.

Sources said that Ijaz met Rana during one of those visits and was in touch with him since then. Rana was remanded by Barasat Court in STF custody for 14 days.