SRINAGAR: Punjab Police have arrested a 15-year-old boy for allegedly spying for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
The minor, a resident of Samba district in Jammu, was reportedly in contact with ISI handlers based in Pakistan for nearly a year, police said, as quoted by Moneycontrol. He is accused of sharing sensitive information related to India’s national security through his mobile phone.
Pathankot Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Daljinder Singh Dhillon said police had received specific inputs suggesting that the boy was in touch with Pakistani military officials, ISI operatives and frontal organisations operating terror modules, and was passing on security-related details.
Based on the information, the boy was apprehended on Monday and questioned by police in Pathankot, the SSP said.
Citing an NDTV report, the SSP said the boy had lost his father, who was residing in Jammu and Kashmir, more than a year ago and believed he had been murdered. However, police investigations found no evidence to support the claim, though the suspicion is said to have affected the boy’s mental state.
The SSP said the boy was active on multiple social media platforms, during which he allegedly fell into the trap of Pakistani agencies and remained in contact with them over the past year.
Police further revealed that Pakistani handlers had created a clone of the boy’s mobile phone. Describing him as technically proficient, the SSP said the agencies accessed information from his device through cloning.
The boy had allegedly filmed certain sensitive locations and collected information. Police said that had his phone been hacked, the data could have been transmitted live. He was also reportedly in contact with gangsters linked to terror modules.
