India will be informing Sri Lanka about an official working with the Pakistan High Commission in Colombo who was allegedly playing a key role in planning terror strikes at the behest of ISI on the US and Israeli consulates in the southern part of this country.
The information will be shared with Sri Lankan authorities by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) signed between the two countries in 2010, official sources said.
NIA had last month taken over the case which was earlier registered by Tamil Nadu Police in which a Sri Lanka national, Sakir Hussain, was arrested following a tip-off from the Intelligence Bureau (IB).
Hussain was accused of having entered India with a mission to carry out reconnaissance of the US Consulate in Chennai and the Israeli Consulate in Bangalore.
The information under MLAT, which has been cleared for sending to Colombo through diplomatic channels, names Amir Zubair Siddiqui, Consular (Visa) in the Pakistani Mission in Sri Lanka as the main conspirator who was involved in a conspiracy with some Lankan nationals for carrying out terror attacks on the two consulates, the sources said.
Repeated attempts to obtain comments from the Pakistani High Commission's Visa and Information sections failed as there was no reply.
However, earlier, its Press Attache Muhammad Daud Ehtisham was quoted as saying that Pakistan and its state institutions are responsible entities and do not indulge in such activities.
Siddiqui is not a new name for IB as his name had cropped up earlier in 2012-13 when security agencies picked up one Tameem Ansari, a frequent flier between Trichy and Colombo. Ansari was arrested after six months of surveillance in 2012.
A small trader who sent, among other things, potatoes and onions to Sri Lanka, Ansari was in touch with Haji, a Tamil- speaking Muslim from Colombo. However, after his business failed, one Haji allegedly introduced him to Siddiqi in the Pakistan mission in Colombo, and his second in command, Shaji.
After reportedly brainwashing him, Siddiqi roped him in to take videos of the Nagapattinam port, the ships that berthed there, the topography and other dimensions as well as Mallipattinam, traditionally a landing point.
