Intelligence sleuths have started probing the links of Shailesh Jadhav, an ex-armyman arrested by the Pune police for involvement with the Inter Services Intelligence.
Data retrieved from Jadhav's computer at his Satara office by a team of the Pune police was expected to throw light on the activities of Jadhav, who has been accused of providing shelter to another ISI agent Sayed Desai, who had fled from Pune last month.
Police stumbled upon Jadhav, owning a transport business in Satara, when they were actually looking out for Desai, a convicted ISI agent who was awaiting deportation to Pakistan after completion of his jail term at Yerawada in Pune.
The Satara-based Jadhav's dramatic arrest at Pune railway station when he was about to board a train for Jodhpur on Saturday night has brought into focus the deep rooted network of the ISI, which seems to have penetrated the interior Maharashtra in addition to Mumbai, sources said on Monday.
According to senior police officials, the 29-year-old Jadhav, who was court-marshaled by the army for financial irregularities during his posting at Joshpur, had spent some time with Desai in Yerawada jail in 2004 when the latter was an undertrial facing charges of passing on classified information about the Khadki ordnance factory in Pune to ISI.
While Jadhav -- from whom police have recovered some classified documents pertaining to Jodhpur army base -- has been booked under the Official Secrets Act, the 50-year-old Desai, whose deportation formalities are still underway, continues to be at large.