The district court here on Monday sent YouTuber Jasbir Singh (41) to judicial custody after his two-day police remand ended. Singh was arrested on charges of spying for Pakistan on June 4.
He was produced in the Mohali court and the state special operations cell (SSOC) chose not to seek an extension of his police remand. Consequently, the court ordered that Jasbir be lodged in Rupnagar jail.
His counsel Mohit Dhupar said Jasbir will be produced in court again on June 23.
Jasbir’s cousin Purushottam Singh said his brother was innocent and had been falsely implicated.
“He is fully cooperating with the police investigation. The family plans to challenge the arrest in court in the coming days,” he said.
Earlier, Jasbir was quizzed during his five-day police remand. The SSOC also interrogated a 32-year-old woman from Jalandhar, a close acquaintance of Jasbir, whose name surfaced during the investigation. She was summoned and questioned for several hours on Sunday.
According to an official, privy to the probe, the woman disclosed that Jasbir had taken her to Delhi three to four times and introduced her to several individuals. “She accompanied him for Pakistan Day celebrations, an event typically open for only those with digital invitations. Jasbir reportedly gained entry to the event through his close ties with an individual named Danish and brought the woman along,” the official said, pleading anonymity. Notably, India had expelled Pakistani diplomat Ehsan-ur-Rahim alias Danish, last month for espionage activities.
{{/usCountry}}According to an official, privy to the probe, the woman disclosed that Jasbir had taken her to Delhi three to four times and introduced her to several individuals. “She accompanied him for Pakistan Day celebrations, an event typically open for only those with digital invitations. Jasbir reportedly gained entry to the event through his close ties with an individual named Danish and brought the woman along,” the official said, pleading anonymity. Notably, India had expelled Pakistani diplomat Ehsan-ur-Rahim alias Danish, last month for espionage activities.
{{/usCountry}}Police have also started examining the woman’s phone and social media accounts as part of the investigation. It was discovered that Jasbir had been providing her with financial assistance over an extended period.
Authorities are now working to determine the source of this funding and under whose instructions it was provided, an official added.
A forensic examination of Jasbir’s laptop revealed that an ISI agent, believed to be acting as a contact or informant, had downloaded three to four applications on it.
Following the arrest of another accused, Jyoti Malhotra, Jasbir reportedly deleted several applications from his device. The forensic team is currently attempting to recover the deleted data to identify the nature of these applications and their possible links to espionage activities.
The SSOC believes that recovering the deleted data and further analysing the communications could lead to major breakthroughs in the case. The investigation is ongoing. An FIR against Jasbir has been registered under Section 152 (threatening India’s sovereignty, unity, integrity) and 61(2) (criminal conspiracy) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and Sections 3, 4 and 5 of the Official Secrets Act at Police Station SSOC, Mohali.