New Delhi: Post Operation Sindoor, Pakistan’s spy agency the ISI has ramped up espionage activity in India. Pakistan, which faced severe embarrassment at the hands of the Indian armed forces, is now on a mission to unearth as many Indian military secrets as it can.
The arrest of a young couple in Delhi on Friday has brought the focus right back on ISI-backed espionage activity in India, and has also revealed an interesting trend whereby SIM smuggling has become a major racket.
Delhi Police said that the accused persons Mohammad Sahil (25) and his wife Sameera (21) had between 2024 and 2025 procured eight Indian SIM cards and sent them to Pakistan via Dubai.
An official said that in all the recently-busted espionage cases it was found that there were persons who would pass on sensitive information.
However, there were a couple of people who were part of those modules whose specific task was to procure Indian SIM cards and send them to Pakistan.
The official said that the Pakistanis do not want any trail leading up to them and hence use Indian SIM cards.
Moreover, when an Indian SIM card is being used, it usually takes longer for the Indian agencies to get wind of what exactly is taking place, the official also added.
An Intelligence Bureau official said that this is part of the entire espionage operation. There are a select few who are tasked only with procuring SIM cards and sending them to Pakistan.
They normally use the Gulf or Nepal routes to send the SIM cards to Pakistan. Once the SIM cards reach Pakistan, they are used to activate WhatsApp accounts through which they lay honey traps and then blackmail people into collecting and passing on sensitive information.
This particular honey-trap module in Pakistan has focussed extensively only on the Indian defence sector. The ISI has also managed to procure through its Indian agents hundreds of SIM cards for such activity.
The official said that the demand is high for these SIM cards as the scale of the operation is huge. Pakistan may be planning a major misadventure and hence has stepped up surveillance and espionage activity in India, the official explained.
Another official said that these Pakistan-based modules that specialise in honey-trapping, work in multiple layers. There are recruits in Pakistan whose job is only to scout social media. They look for persons who have posted their pictures in uniform.
Persons who have links with the defence sector are also potential targets in this honey trapping network, the official said.
Other government officials, too, are potential targets of the ISI, the official said. In India the ISI’s recruits are tasked with procuring SIMs and sending them to Pakistan.
There are also recruits who are not part of the defence or government sector. These persons are tasked with collecting information around the defence installations and passing them to the ISI.
Almost 90 per cent of these operations are carried out by activating WhatsApp accounts using Indian SIM cards.
The first contact is always made using the social media before the conversation shifts to WhatsApp, officials say.
While the Indian agencies have bust multiple honey trapping modules, such cases continue to crop up quite frequently.
What is worrisome is that despite so many warnings and the agencies spreading awareness multiple times, there are still many who easily fall prey to the ISI’s honey trapping network, an official added.
(IANS)
