Aftere Bihar Police claimed that the recent train accidents, including the derailment of Indore-Patna express near Kanpur which left over 150 dead, was possibly orchestrated by the Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI, more details are now emerging over how the ISI network in India could be involved in this sabotage.
Investigations are now pointing to an elaborate sabotage operation, the main brain behind which is a man called Shafi Shaikh. As informed to the Government of India by RAW, Karachi based Shafi Shaikh is a known ISI agent and is a main cog in Pakistan’s Fake Indian Currency Note (FICN) operations.
The Operation:
Shafi Shaikh is believed to have been in contact with a certain Nepali national named Shamshul Hoda, who in turn contacted Nepali criminal Brij Kishore Giri for targeting Indian railways. Brij Kishore oversaw the execution of the sabotage by hiring locals in India, who reportedly then proceeded to plant IEDs on tracks.
Two of his associates, Arun Ram and Deepak Ram were hired by Giri to plant IED near Ghosharan in Bihar, which when detected by the security authorities made Giri livid. As a punishment, he decided to murder them. Police in Nepal found a video recording of this murder, which Giri had made reportedly to send as a proof to Hoda.
For his next operation, Giri hired Moti Paswan, who was the first one to confess to the Bihar Police about the whole sabotage operation.
It is further reported that Giri (who has been arrested by Nepal police but is currently hospitalized after trying to escape from the cops) and Hoda were in regular correspondence over the phone. Hoda is currently believed to be in Dubai.
The Motive?
Though not confirmed by agencies, these sabotages might have been Shafi Shaikh’s way of extracting ‘revenge’ against India. As the kingpin of fake currency operations in India, he was presiding over a ‘business’ that yielded at least 500 crore rupees in profits for the Pakistanis.
However, this business has been provided a crippling blow due to demonetisation leading to a complete stop in FICN smuggling, according to MoS Home, Kiren Rijiju. Such a loss in revenue could have prompted Shaikh and his peers in the ISI to think up the whole train sabotage operation in order to get even.
The arrests and investigations by the police hint at this possibility as the frequency of such incidents has increased (there have been five train derailments since November 20 last year) after the effects of demonetisation became clear.
