Mumbai court awards three men four years of imprisonment for harbouring, aiding Pakistani spy

The three convicts had helped the spy obtain an Indian passport through forged documents. They had also made arrangements for him to stay in Mumbai.

The Metropolitan Magistrate court has convicted three people for harbouring and aiding a Pakistani spy. The three convicts –Sayyed Haidar Raja, Laik Ahmed Khan and Rajendra Misra have been sentenced to four years of imprisonment.

The Pakistani national even had his name enrolled in the voters list and ration card. (HT FILE)

The three convicts had helped Azar Rafiq, a resident of Pakistan’s Punjab province, to obtain an Indian passport through forged documents. The trio had also made arrangements for Rafiq to stay in Mumbai.

The prosecution had told the court that the three had helped Rafiq to obtain the Indian passport by the name Sarang Ali Khan.

As per the prosecution, Khan had provided accommodation to Rafiq at his residence, while Raja employed him in his electronic shop. Misra, a teacher from Akbarpur, Uttar Pradesh, had helped Rafiq obtain fake school leaving certificate of Baba Tapasi Das Baleshwar Das Junior High School.

The prosecution claimed that on the basis of the school certificate, Rafiq had obtained a driving license and had also opened a bank account. Further, Rafiq managed to get his name entered as one of Khan’s sons in the ration card. Rafiq’s name was also added in the voter’s list of Colaba constituency. On the basis of all these documents, he managed to get an Indian passport.

The teacher told the court that, “School leaving certificate No. 835 (number mentioned on the certificate used by Rafiq) was not issued by their school for any Sarang Ali Khan, as there never was a student by that name in their school. On the contrary, as per the school’s register, a school leaving certificate with number 835 was issued to an individual named Shriram Ramshay Tiwari.”

The judgement read, “After scrutinising the evidences available on record from every angle, one thing becomes concrete, that in furtherance of their common intention, the accused aided Rafiq in getting all these forged documents for obtaining the Indian passport though they knew that he is the Pakistani national and had visited the cities of Kolkata and Ajmer on Bangladeshi passport with a different name, before coming to Mumbai.”