AHMEDABAD: Gujarat Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) arrested a labourer Friday for allegedly sharing sensitive information about movement of Indian Coast Guard (ICG) ships with a Pakistani agent. The accused Dipesh Gohel is a welder-cum-labourer at Okha jetty in coastal Devbhumi Dwarka district. For a daily payment of Rs 200, he allegedly passed on confidential information about ICG ships arriving at the jetty to a Pak-based woman, SP (ATS) K Siddharth said, adding Gohel was charged under BNS Sections 61 and 147 for criminal conspiracy and waging war against govt.
ATS had been keeping a close watch on Gohel after receiving a tip-off that he was in touch with an agent of ISI or a Pakistan army officer. Technical surveillance mounted after the tip-off established that phone calls and messages to Gohel emanated from Pakistan, the SP said. “For past three years, Gohel was employed by a contractor who repairs ICG vessels at Okha jetty. He came in contact with a woman named Sahima on Facebook nearly seven months ago. She then started talking to him on WhatsApp,” said the SP.
The woman, who told Gohel she worked for Pakistan’s navy, offered to pay him Rs 200 per day if he shared names and numbers of ICG ships and their movement, the SP said. Gohel provided the account details of three of his friends, who received Rs 42,000 in total from the woman through UPI transactions over the past seven months. Gohel would then take cash from them, said the SP.