Pakistani spy averse to returning to Sri Lanka

Indian investigators, questioning Pakistani spy Arun Selvarajan, 28, from Sri Lanka, on Thursday found him averse to returning home. He was running an event management firm in Chennai. "He is not telling us why he doesn't want to go back home to Colombo," NIA sources said, adding that their suspicion about Arun's possible links with the LTTE could be true.

Arun Selvarajan

Over the next few days, the team will try to extract information on others involved in his clandestine operation. "We want to know how and through whom he tried to access vital defence installations, like the OTA, Coast Guard, harbour and Kalpakkam nuclear facility, and the tools used to gather the information," sources said.

A special court on Wednesday granted six days custody of suspected ISI agent Arun Selvarajan to the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

The judge, however, dismissed a petition by CBI to include it as a party in the investigation.

The judge said CBI should approach the CBI special court to seek custody of Selvarajan, as this court is exclusively for NIA cases.

Selvarajan was produced before the judge on Wednesday and NIA officials whisked him away as soon as judge Moni ordered six days custody.

NIA officials said they would be focusing on the kind of information the accused is believed to have passed on to his Pakistani handlers in Sri Lanka, Shaji and Siddiqui.

NIA had arrested Selvarajan from a hideout in Chennai on September 10.

Arun Selvarajan, had met his Pakistan contact on September 3, a week before he was arrested in Chennai by NIA investigators, sources said.

This was the last time he met his contact in person. "He met the man from Pakistan at Pune and flew back to Chennai the next day," NIA sources said.

An NIA team is questioning Arun Selvarajan who was running an event management company, since Thursday after a designated court in Poonamalee gave six days custody of the suspected spy to the investigation agency.

The investigators indicated that they would be 'interacting' with persons with whom Arun Selvarajan was in regular touch. "Arun is co-operating well during questioning," the official added.

The probe team had seized seven mobile phones, 11 SIM cards, laptops, and many digital dossiers from him immediately after his arrest on September 10. He was picked up by officials

after they had been monitoring him for more than a month because his mobile number was in the contact list of Thameem Ansari, another suspected Pakistani spy hailing from Thanjavur and arrested two years ago in Tiruchy.

His money transactions too were under the scanner of government agencies. The NIA team that checked Arun's smartphones found that he was in the habit of recording his conversations with people he considered important.

The NIA claimed that Arun, 28, was assigned by his Pakistani handlers sitting in Colombo to collect details of the Officers training academy at St Thomas Mount, Coast Guard facility and DGP's office near Marina beach, the NSG hub near Vandalur and the Indira Gandhi centre for atomic research in Kalpakkam.

The NIA will also try to find out if Arun had any kind of links with local LTTE sympathisers and suspected LTTE supporters lodged in special camps in the state.

The NIA has also said local officials, if involved, would face action.

Mobile phone records recovered from Arun revealed that he was in touch with several sex workers whom he had probably sourced to appease some of his sources.

Arun was the third person arrested in Tamil Nadu for spying for Pakistan's ISI and the second Lankan.

In September 2012 the state police had arrested Thameem Ansari, a Thanjavur native, in Tiruchy.

In April this year, the 'Q' branch of the TN police arrested Sakir Hussian, a Sri Lankan, from Chennai. Arun Selvarajan was picked up by NIA officials last week after they tracked his telephone links with Ansari.

He was also under the surveillance of the Central financial intelligence unit because of suspicious fund transactions made to him through a bank in Moradabad, UP.