Lucknow, India, May 20 – Indian authorities have arrested a man in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh for allegedly engaging in cross-border espionage and smuggling activities on behalf of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), police said on Sunday.
The Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) said Shahzad, a resident of Tanda in Rampur district, was taken into custody following intelligence inputs linking him to the transmission of sensitive information related to national security. The agency accused him of acting as an ISI operative and smuggling goods including cosmetics, spices and clothing into India.
“He has travelled to Pakistan several times and was allegedly involved in cross-border smuggling and espionage,” the STF said in a statement. Shahzad has been booked under provisions related to national security and espionage, it added.
The arrest is part of a wider crackdown by Indian authorities on suspected ISI-linked espionage networks operating within the country.
Earlier this month, Haryana Police detained a 24-year-old man identified as Nauman Ilahi in Panipat for allegedly sharing sensitive information with a Pakistani handler. Ilahi, originally from Uttar Pradesh’s Kairana district, had been working as a factory security guard and was residing with relatives in Panipat.
In March, another Uttar Pradesh resident, Ravindra Kumar, was arrested for allegedly leaking classified information from the Ordnance Factory in Firozabad. Investigators said Kumar, a factory chargeman, was in contact with a Pakistani agent using the alias “Neha Sharma” on Facebook and communicated with her via WhatsApp voice and video calls.
“In exchange for money, Kumar transmitted confidential information and documents, some of which were recovered from his phone,” the ATS said. He had allegedly been deleting messages regularly, but remnants of chats and files were found during forensic analysis.
Authorities have warned of a growing trend of ISI operatives targeting Indian government employees, including those in the Ministry of External Affairs, through social media and financial inducements. India and Pakistan have long accused each other of covert operations and espionage, with multiple arrests made on both sides in recent years. There was no immediate response from the Pakistani government to the latest arrests.
