Jogeshwari man shared info about military installations with ISI: Police

Sayyed Armaan arrested for sharing military information with Pakistan's ISI. Armaan was hired by Munna Jhingada, a hitman of Dawood Ibrahim, for terror attacks.

Sayyed Armaan, who was recently arrested in Jogeshwari, had collected information, and taken pictures of military establishments in Uttar Pradesh and shared these with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) through his Pakistan-based nephew Sayyad Muzzakkir Muddasar Hussain, sources in the anti-terrorism squad (ATS) have said.

Jogeshwari man shared info about military installations with ISI: Police

Hussain, who goes by the alias Munna Jhingada, had hired Armaan, 65, and one Mohamad Raees for the job as he wanted to carry out terror attacks there, a senior ATS officer said. A hitman of gangster Dawood Ibrahim, Jhingada had also sent money to Armaan several times for recruiting agents for ISI, the officer added.

All three accused originally hail from UP’s Gonda district.

The UP ATS arrested Raees on July 16 and during interrogation, he allegedly revealed the name of Armaan. Raees allegedly told the investigators that he was staying in Mumbai with Armaan and was working as a carpenter. He wanted to go to Saudi Arabia for better opportunities, but Armaan advised him that he could earn money here and subsequently got him in touch with Jhingada, police officers said.

The same day, Armaan and one Mohamad Salman Siddhique, 25, were arrested at their residence in Jogeshwari by ATS teams from Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. Armaan would use Siddhique to give Raees his cut from the money he had received from Jhingada, police said.

In 2000, Jhingada was involved in a firing at Chhota Rajan in Bangkok. He was arrested by the Bangkok police who identified him from his Pakistani passport as Mohamad Saleem, police officers said. In 2019, India lost the case because Jhingada refused to give a sample of his DNA and Thailand’s legal system did not allow drawing of samples without the person’s consent. As a result, his real identity could not be established, the officers said and added that he was eventually deported to Pakistan that year.

Jhingada, a resident of Janata Colony in Jogeshwari East, studied at Ismail Yusuf College. In 1990, he was in his second year BA when he allegedly killed a student for assaulting his classmate and was arrested by the Meghwadi police. Later he was allegedly involved in murders between 1994 and 1997, before escaping to Dubai, police officers added.