Ahmedabad:
Citing "lack of sufficient evidence", a local court has let off one of the four accused arrested on charges of spying and leaking confidential information pertaining to the country's military bases to Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).
"There was no sufficient evidence against Jamnagar resident Idrish Pinjara (33) arrested on October 23, 2012. The metropolitan court has ordered his release, upon which he was set free yesterday under section 169 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC)", Investigating Officer (IO) H A Rathod told PTI.
As per the chargesheet filed here last month, three other accused Sirajuddin Ali Fakir (24), Mohammad Ayub (23) and Naushad Ali (23) face charges of criminal conspiracy and waging war against the country, after their arrest last year.
On October 14, 2012, Fakir and Ayub, both residents of Jamalpur locality here, were arrested for allegedly passing on confidential information related to Army base in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar Army Cantonment to the Pakistani spy agency.
Jodhpur resident Naushad Ali was picked up on November 2, 2012 on the charges of providing information about Jodhpur Army cantonment and BSF headquarters.
The chargesheet says the three saved messages in drafts to facilitate Pakistani officials to access them using-emails.
They were booked under sections 121 (waging, or attempting to wage war, or abetting waging
of war, against the Government of India), 121 (A) (conspiracy to commit offences punishable by Sec 121), 123 (concealing with intent to facilitate design to wage war), and 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) of Indian Penal Code (IPC) besides section 66 (F) of IT Act and section 3 of Official Secrets Act.
"As the trio were involved in a case relating to providing confidential information about military bases in Gujarat and Rajasthan and national security, prior sanction of the Indian Army was needed about what constitutes as classified, secret information, and also nod from state and Central governments for their prosecution", Rathod said, adding both the governments granted the sanction for their prosecution.
The chargesheet also mentioned 75 evidence and details of nine other accused, who are yet to be arrested.
While two among the nine persons are Pakistani nationals, five are Saudi residents and the rest Dubai nationals. According to the chargesheet, the trio transferred around Rs 2,85,000 via Western Union Money transfer and Moneygram Money Transfer.