6 days ago
Pakistan espionage case: What YouTuber Jasbir Singh's lawyer said in his defence
After YouTuber Jasbir Singh was arrested on charges of espionage, his lawyer, Madhav Shukla, questioned the credibility of the police investigation and said that the case lacked concrete evidence.
Speaking to ANI on Wednesday, advocate Shukla said that the case against his client was based solely on unsubstantiated claims of links to Pakistan's spy agency, the ISI.
"Jasbir Singh was arrested yesterday, and the court sent him to a 3-day Police remand. On June 7, he will be produced in court again. As per the police FIR, there are 3 allegations against him. One is that he gets foreign funding, the second is that he has links with the ISI, and the third is that he has sensitive data with him. He used to appear before the State Special Operations Cell as a responsible citizen whenever he was summoned. If he had any malicious intentions, he would have avoided it," said Shukla.
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The lawyer further revealed that the defence team had already submitted Singh's bank statements, financial records, and phone data to the police.
"Police have not come up on record with anything like who he was in touch with, his mode of communication and his mode of money transfer. They just have a simple allegation that he has a connection with ISI," he further asked.
Jasbir Singh, a Punjab-based YouTuber, was allegedly in close contact with influencer Jyoti Malhotra, who is already in custody on charges of spying for Pakistan, PTI reported, citing officials.
Singh was arrested on Tuesday after police unearthed a 'terror-backed espionage network' linked to him. He had allegedly travelled to Pakistan three times, officials said.
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Jasbir Singh was found to be associated with a Pakistani Intelligence Operative (PIO), Punjab Director General of Police Gaurav Yadav said.
Singh has a YouTube channel called 'Jaan Mahal' with over 10 lakh subscribers, and also maintained contact with Ehsan-ur-Rahim alias Danish, a Pakistani national who was expelled as an official of the Pakistan High Commission, Yadav posted.
