Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Dehradun on April 14, a man named Vikrant Kashyap was arrested by the Uttarakhand Special Task Force (STF) for allegedly filming sensitive locations and sharing the footage with his Pakistani handlers.
The STF, which arrested the 29-year-old from the Premnagar area under Operation Prahar, recovered an illegal .32-bore pistol, seven live cartridges, a spray paint can, and a mobile phone from him.
According to the STF's Senior Superintendent of Police Ajay Singh, the accused was found to be in contact with Pakistan-based terrorist and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agent Shahzad Bhatti, and his associate Rana.
He added that the accused had been in constant touch with his Pakistani handlers via social media platforms such as Instagram and WhatsApp, through which videos of various sensitive locations—such as the ISBT and Uttarakhand Police HQ—were shared.
When interrogated, Kashyap said that he had first met Bhatti online after seeing the Pakistani handler's posts about avenging the singer Sidhu Moosewala, who was shot dead in 2022.
Kashyap, who was a fan of the singer, was then lured with promises of a good amount of money and being settled in Dubai via Nepal.
He later received instructions to film certain sensitive locations in the state capital, and that he would later have to blow up these locations, for which he would receive explosives and other items from a man named Gurjar, a Hindustan Times report said.
Apart from instructions to spray the words 'Tehreek-e-Taliban Hindustan (TTH)' on walls in various places to instil fear ahead of PM Modi's April 14 visit, Kashyap had also been asked to hurl a hand grenade at members of an organisation in Delhi and at a Supreme Court advocate, the report added.
This also comes just days after a man identified as Aman Kumar was arrested in Bihar's Buxar district for allegedly contacting the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States, and demanding money in exchange for the assassination of PM Modi.
Kumar, who had earlier threatened to hack into the Kolkata Airport, was arrested late on Wednesday, and his devices were seized.