Islamabad: Pakistan’s army has taken a suspect linked to India’s RAW intelligence agency into custody, days after a military court awarded the death sentence to alleged spy Kulbhushan Jadhav.
Uzair Baloch, locally known as underworld don and a key figure in the the Lyari gang war, was taken into custody early on Wednesday under the Pakistan Army Act, the Inter-Service Public Relations (ISPR) said.
Authorities allege Baloch was helping Jadhav in espionage activities against Pakistan.
“Uzair Baloch has been taken into military custody under the Pakistan Army [and] Official Secrets Act ,” Major-General Asif Ghafoor, director-general of the ISPR, said.
Baloch was arrested by Pakistan Rangers in January 2016 in Karachi and charged with spying and anti-state activities.
He is believed to have been in direct contact with Jadhav who was arrested by Pakistani intelligence agencies in Balochistan in March 2016 and hand the death sentence by a Field General Court Martial (FGCM) on April 10, 2017.
Pakistan’s military suspects Baloch was in contact with foreign intelligence agencies, including India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and an Iranian spy agency.
Media reports in Pakistan suggest Baloch had earlier travelled to Arab Gulf countries on an Iranian passport.
On 29 December 2014, Uzair was arrested by Interpol in Dubai as he was traveling to the United Arab Emirates from Muscat.
He was later brought back to Pakistan where warrants had been issued for targeted killings and extortion.
Baloch earned notoriety in Karachi’s poor suburb of Lyari, known for gang wars, and among the various ethnic communities of Balochs, Pashtuns and Mohajirs. He has allegedly been involved in extortion, attacks on security personnel and spying.
Baloch has been charged in over 100 criminal cases involving including murder, extortion, terrorism, arms smuggling and attacks on polices
Meanwhile on Tuesday, Pakistan’s army arrested five militants who were allegedly operating networks for RAW and Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) in Karachi and Balochistan.
