The acts of subversion carried out against India by the dreaded Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan was revealed at the Poonamallee Special Court near Chennai when Zakir Hussain, a Sri lankan national arrested in April last by the Chennai Police and the National Investigating Agency, said that he was engaged in circulating counterfeit Indian currency.
“I knowingly smuggled in fake Indian currency worth Rs2.53 lakh and I was assisted by two Malaysia-based persons. The operation was carried out at the instance of Amir Zubair Siddiqui and Bose alias Shah, two Pakistani diplomats working in the High Commission of that country in Colombo,” Hussain told Mani, the Special Court Judge on Thursday.
This substantiates the charges made by the police and the NIA that Hussain and two others who were held in Tamil Nadu had been assigned the task of distributing counterfeit currency as well as collect details about important security and strategic installations in South India like the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Madras Atomic Power Station Kalpakkam and various establishments of the Indian Navy.
Hussain had refused all these charges earlier. “His argument was that he was a businessman who had come to Chennai to procure textile goods to be taken to Colombo. But, when was confronted with details of the persons whom he met and the places he had visited, he had to spill the beans," said one of the intelligence officials who was a member of the team which interrogated him.
Siva Balan and Mohammed Saleem, who were arrested along with Hussain denied the charges and stood their ground that they do not know anything about the ISI and counterfeit currency notes.