A 40-year old Imran Yusuf Lafangajiwala, arrested here along with his wife as Pakistani spies and sent to the 14-day judicial custody by a city court, is a resident of Ahmedabad.

The crime branch of Delhi Police, which claims to have nabbed them at the New Delhi railway station on December 5, insists that he had migrated to Karachi in 1988 and sent back to India by Pakistani intelligence agency ISI for recce of Ahmedabad's Aksardham Temple and Agra cantonment for a possible terror attack.

He had all the documents, like passport, driving licence, voter's ID and the Income Tax PAN card, to establish his credentials as an Indian national from Gujarat, but Police claimed it had seized Pakistani passports on them when they were nabbed on a tip-off as soon as they alighted from the Gorakhdham Express.

As it happens in all such cases, the Police told the court that they had admitted that they had been tasked by the ISI to spy for it in India and that they had illegally sneaked into India through Nepal border and then traveled from Gorakhpur in U.P. to Delhi without any visa stamps of the Indian High Commission on their Pakistani passports.

If the ISI wanted to plant them in India, it could have arranged the valid visa and in any case they would not have been allowed to keep the Pakistani passports with them that can easily give out their identity.

But DCP Crime Ashok Chand, who once headed the Special Cell specialising in terrorism, however, insists that the duo had solemnised a sham marriage in Pakistan a few months ago to easily go as a married couple. "The idea was to settle Soofia in Agra and wait for orders from Pakistan. In between, Imran was to hunt for a safe hideout at Ahmedabad," he said.

When told that seizures from Imran included all the documents that establish his bonafides as a resident of Ahmedabad, Chand said: "He had brought all the Indian documents along to prove that he is an Indian citizen so that nobody could have raised the finger of suspicion on him."

He claimed the marriage certificate would have helped Imran and the woman get a rented accommodation in Agra to make it a safe hideout. In reality, any landlord would have refused to rent out his accommodation to anyone having Pakistani passports and a marriage certificate from Pakistan.

Police not taking him on remand to trace the third person, the couple was allegedly was to meet in Agra and who is described as absconding, also tells a different story as it let the court send them to the judicial custody in Tihar Jails.