India levels terror allegations against ex-Pak diplomat

ISLAMABAD: Serious allegations are being leveled against a former Pakistani diplomat by the Indian government, similar to the charges framed against Indian convicted spy Kulbhushan Jadhav, for planning attacks on vital establishments in India.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was reluctant to comment on this development. The Pakistani citizen has not been named in the charge sheet because no “concrete” evidence could be gathered against him.

Even Pakistan’s High Commissions in New Delhi and Sri Lanka have not made any comment. India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) even visited Sri Lanka and other countries to collect evidence to prove the involvement of a Pakistani citizen who was at the time a naval officer on deputation to Sri Lanka. “We now have clinching evidence to prove the involvement of Mr. Siddiqui in the terror plot. A supplementary charge sheet will be filed,” the police said.

According to news stories carried by the Indian media, the NIA is likely to charge-sheet former Pakistan diplomat Amir Zubair Siddiqui, Counsellor (Visa) at the Pakistan High Commission in Colombo, in a case of conspiracy to attack vital establishments in India.

The charge sheet is being filed with a special court for terror cases at Poonamallee. “Among the installations planned to be targeted were the US Consulate in Chennai, the Israeli Consulate in Bengaluru, Eastern Naval Command HQ in Visakhapatnam and ports across the country.”

“The case relates to the arrest of Mohamed Zakir Hussain by the ‘Q’ Branch CID of the Tamil Nadu police in 2013 here on specific information that he was indulging in spying as an agent of Pakistan”, says the media report.

Zakir Hussain’s task was allegedly to cause explosion at the foreign consulates and defence and nuclear establishments among others.ncriminating documents and fake Indian currency were seized from his possession.

He admitted to interrogators that he was acting at the behest of Mr. Siddiqui, an official of the Pakistan Consulate in Colombo. The NIA investigations revealed that Hussain had met Mr. Siddiqui in Colombo on a few occasions and was instructed to collect information about defence establishments, movement of arms/ammunition to the Indian Army and arrange fake passport/visa for two Pakistan nationals to enter India.