‘2 Pakistan officials guided Zubair’

NEW DELHI: Nine days after the Crime Branch arrested a Jamia Nagar resident on charges of gathering information about Indian defence establishments for Pakistan, investigators claim they have identified two senior Pakistan High Commission officials who were supervising the spy.
Sources say the two cannot be questioned as they enjoy diplomatic immunity.Police will now approach the ministry of external affairs for help in probing their role.
Sources say the alleged spy, Zubair Khan, used to meet the Pakistani handlers regularly and knew them by their code names, Talib and Fayyaz. “Khan says he does not know their designations. We have some details about them which we cannot share at this moment,” said a senior officer.
Zubair was arrested after Crime Branch officials kept tabs on him for long and found out that he was gathering information about defence establishments here and handing over the same to these two officers. Police had even recovered some maps of cantonment areas and details of various battalions of the army.
Apart from spying on defence establishments, sources say, Khan was tasked with collecting data about Air India pilots, since fresh talks are on between India and Pakistan on starting flights; about journalists who write on and frequently travel to Pakistan, families that regularly visit Pakistan, and government officials with bilateral roles.
Zubair Khan is a resident of Shaheen Bagh in Jamia Nagar. He had reportedly come in touch with the officers of the Pak High Commission when he went there for an interview for an Urdu teacher’s post, said sources.