A 26-year-old tea-stall operator from the Jaisalmer district has been remanded in five-day police custody in a Pakistan-linked espionage case, marking the latest arrest in a long-running counter-intelligence push along the western frontier. Mustaq Ali, son of Nabi Bakhsh and a resident of Hingol village under Nachna police station limits, was arrested on June 16 by the Rajasthan Police's CID (Intelligence) wing and produced on Wednesday before the Special Judicial Magistrate (Jaipur Metropolitan-I), who granted custody till June 22. The prosecution had sought a seven-day remand. Mustaq has been booked under the Official Secrets Act, 1923.
The tea stall as a vantage point
The investigation, which Additional Director General of Police (Intelligence) Praful Kumar said followed sustained surveillance of suspected espionage activity in the border state, alleges that Mustaq used his tea stall as a vantage point to track the routine movement of the Border Security Force and the Indian Army. The stall, investigators say, sat about 25 kilometres short of the international border, along a stretch of road that BSF and Army convoys use regularly, in scrub-desert terrain where roadside chai stops are one of the few places vehicles pause. Officials say he photographed and recorded troop movements on his phone from that spot and sent them to handlers in Pakistan through social media. Money was wired in return, the prosecution alleges, in small tranches that did not draw attention to a single transaction.
Two years on social media
According to the Rajasthan CID (Intelligence), Mustaq had been in regular contact with the Pakistani handlers for nearly two years. After the arrest he was moved to the Central Interrogation Centre at Jaipur, where a joint team drawn from multiple intelligence agencies questioned him alongside a forensic analysis of his mobile phone. Investigators are working through call records, chat threads and image metadata to map who he was in touch with and what was sent and when.
In court on June 17
Special Public Prosecutor Sudesh Satwan, who appeared for the state on Wednesday, told reporters that the seven-day remand was sought to allow investigators time to confront the accused with phone records and other material. The Special Judicial Magistrate (Jaipur Metropolitan-I) instead granted five days. Mustaq will remain in police custody until June 22, 2026.
Pattern in the desert districts
Mustaq Ali's case is the latest of a string of similar arrests in Rajasthan's desert districts over the past eighteen months. In January, Rajasthan Intelligence arrested Jhabraram, 28, of Nedan village in Pokaran, on charges of sharing OTPs of SIM cards in his name with handlers who in turn used the numbers to run WhatsApp accounts for surveillance. Earlier, Assistant Administrative Officer Shakoor Khan of Jaisalmer and another Jaisalmer resident, Hanif Khan of Basanpeer Jooni, were also booked under the Official Secrets Act in similar cases. The state intelligence wing has separately said in recent months that it is keeping a continuous watch on Pakistani intelligence networks attempting to recruit small commercial fronts close to the border, including roadside shops, dhabas and tea stalls, as low-cost observation posts.
What the law says
Mustaq Ali has not been convicted. The Official Secrets Act, 1923, allows for terms of imprisonment of up to fourteen years on conviction, but at this stage the proceedings are at the investigation and custody phase, and the accused is entitled to a fair trial. The custody granted on Wednesday allows the police until June 22 to question him further.