The duo was coerced into spying by India’s intelligence agencies
Security forces arrested two Indian spies crossing the line of control (LOC) in Gilgit-Baltistan. The arrested duo, Noor Mohammad Wani and Feroze Ahmed Lone, belong to Achora village in tehsil Gurez of Bandipur district, India-occupied Kashmir.
Identification documents and Indian currency were recovered from the arrested spies among other materials. Gilgit SSP Raja Mirza Hassan presented alleged spies before the media at a press conference. The two were tortured and threatened by the Indian forces to work for them as spies in Pakistan.
According to Lone, who is a graduate and worked as a laborer, was introduced to the Indian army by an acquaintance in 2014. The same person, named by his first name Rauf, also introduced Wani for the Indian intelligence.
“The officials convinced us to work for them and told us that we will go to Pakistan by crossing LoC. We were not ready to work for them but they threatened us that if we did not do so, they will kill us and our families,” Lone said.
The two were also offered financial compensation for spying on Pakistan. The Indian authorities offered them one million rupees upon the completion of their mission.
“If we go to Pakistan, the Indians said, they will financially help our families,” he said. “Then we became ready to work for them. They gave us Rs100,000 and said that we would be paid Rs1 million after completing our mission.”
This is not the first time Indian spies have been caught in Pakistan. In 2016, Kulbhushan Jhadav, a commander in Indian Navy was arrested in Balochistan during a counter-intelligence operation. At the time, Jhadav was carrying Iranian documents and was acting as a businessman. He was sentenced to death in 2017 and still awaits his fate as India has taken up his case with the International Court of Justice.