According to a senior police officer, the Gujarat Anti-terror Squad (ATS) detained a 53-year-old man who immigrated to Gujarat from Pakistan and was granted Indian citizenship in 2005. The guy is accused of aiding Pakistani authorities in their espionage efforts against Indian army personnel.
According to ATS superintendent of police Om Prakash Jat, Labhshankar Maheshwari, who was residing in Tarapur town in the Anand district, was detained on suspicion of spreading malware among defence personnel via WhatsApp, which Pakistani intelligence agencies used to obtain data from their phones.
Maheshwari once convinced parents to download a file that he said was required to record some information by posing as an official of an army school. According to Jat, at one point he also persuaded a large number of army personnel to install the application by making a fake connection between it and the government’s “Har Ghar Tiranga” campaign. Additionally, he asked people to download the app and upload a picture of their child holding the flag of their country.
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He said that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Pakistani army had access to a data center where the stolen material was sent for processing.
According to Jat, “It has been confirmed that this malware was installed on a soldier’s mobile phone who is stationed in Kargil.”
Sections 123 (concealing design to wage war against the government) and 121-A (conspiracy to wage war against the government) of the Indian Penal Code are the charges Maheshwari is facing. In accordance with pertinent provisions of the Information Technology Act, he is also charged.
“What we have found is that Maheshwari—who was originally from Pakistan and was awarded Indian citizenship in 2005—agreed to take part in this plot in order to speed up the process of obtaining a visa for himself, his spouse, and two additional family members who wanted to travel to Pakistan to see their relatives,” Jat stated.
The military intelligence provided information that led to the action, identifying an Indian phone number that was being used to spread malware for the purpose of spying on Pakistan. The detectives used this information to track down Maheshwari, the owner of an Anand food store.
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Officials cited Maheshwari’s interrogation when they stated that he supposedly came into contact with Pakistani intelligence while he was planning a visit to the country and, at a relative’s recommendation, contacted an unidentified individual for the visas. After his return, Maheshwari kept in contact with this person to help his sister and niece apply for visas, among other relatives.
He then made contact with two others, Asgar Modi and Saqlain Thaim of Jamnagar, who persuaded him to distribute the malware among defence personnel in order to conduct espionage.
Modi and Thaim are both presently fugitives and are thought to have fled the nation. A Gujarat ATS official stated, “One is reportedly in Somalia, while the other is in Dubai.”
