Nuh espionage: Lawyer received massive funds in three bank accounts from Pakistan

Police said that Khan was in touch with Pakistani intelligence operatives through WhatsApp and other social media platforms, and on their directions, made cash withdrawals from his bank accounts and handed them to a sweetshop owner in Punjab.

Disclosures made by 26-year-old Nuh-based lawyer Mohammad Rizwan Khan, who was arrested in an espionage case on Monday based on central inputs,led to the arrest of a contact from Punjab and revealed the existence of a large cross-border network for which he was routing funds from Pakistan to Punjab for terror activities, senior Haryana police officials said on Friday.

Khan practised in a Gurugram court and was detained near Pipaka in Tauru while returning home on Monday evening.

Police said that Khan was in touch with Pakistani intelligence operatives through WhatsApp and other social media platforms, and on their directions, made cash withdrawals from his bank accounts and handed them to a sweetshop owner named Ajay Arora at Shahkot in Punjab’s Jalandhar.

Arora was arrested Wednesday night and both have been sent to police remand up to December 4.

A senior police officer privy to the investigation, on condition of anonymity, said Khan has one bank account in Gurugram and two in Tauru. “It was in these bank accounts that he was continuously receiving the funds from Pakistan. Khan had withdrawn ₹34 lakh and handed it over to Arora recently,” he said.

“After his arrest, Arora disclosed that he kept it in a bag at a relative’s residence in Punjab. A police team has taken him there for recovery,” the officer said.

Police officials said that the network has been running for months and central agencies were first to get an inkling about it. They alerted the Nuh police about Khan. Khan lived in Kharkhari in Nuh’s Tauru and has visited Pakistan several times to meet his extended family members, who have been living there since the Partition.

A senior police official said that they strongly suspect that Khan’s first point of contact with Pakistani intelligence operatives was at the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi, where he visited to get travel visas for his trips. “Afterwards, he might have met operatives in Pakistan. However, things will be clear only after his detailed interrogation,” the officer said.

The officer said that in two previous espionage cases that had surfaced in May after Operation Sindoor, two Nuh residents had been trapped in similar fashion.

Khan practised in a Gurugram court and was detained near Pipaka in Tauru while returning home on Monday evening. During sustained quizzing, he disclosed about passing on multiple types of information to Pakistani operatives and of receiving directions from them. Investigators said they found Khan’s chats with PIOs on his phone, which was seized along with his laptop.

Arora was caught in Jalandhar and brought to Nuh. Both were formally arrested on Wednesday after an FIR against him, Khan and other identified suspects was registered under section 113(3) (Terrorist Act [abets, attempts, conspires or knowingly facilitates]) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Section 7 (prohibit use of funds belonging to an unlawful declared unlawful) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act at Sadar Tauru police station on Tuesday.

Nuh public prosecutor Vijay Sehrawat said that duo was produced in the court of Nuh chief judicial magistrate Chavi Goel at 2.30am on Thursday and sent to eight-day police remand.

“Police have prayed for a 10-day remand of the duo for interrogation. Investigation agency needs to make cash recoveries which have been hidden by Arora in Punjab,” he said.