ISI terror network busted, 5 held in Madhya Pradesh

Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh police on Thursday busted a terror-funding network “run” by Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan by arresting five people.

One of the five arrested persons, Balram Singh (26), was arrested in February 2017 on similar charges and was out on bail. All of them were arrested at different places in Satna district in MP, the police said Four others who landed in police net have been identified as Sunil Singh, Shubham Tiwari, Bhagvendra Singh and a local operative whose identity has been concealed by police in the interest of investigation, the police said.

The arrests were made following a tip off by Uttar Pradesh anti terrorist squad (ATS). All the five arrested people have been handed over to ATS of the MP police for further interrogation.

Satna district superintendent of police Riyaz Iqbal has confirmed arrests of five people. The police seized cell phones, a laptop and SIM cards from their possession.

Preliminary investigation has indicated that they were used by at least 13 Pakistani handlers for transferring money raised through cross-border lottery racket to ISI "spies" in different parts of India.

They were keeping in touch with other alleged ISI operatives spread across different parts of the country including Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, through social media messenger, the police said.