The suspect, identified as Indian national Javed Akhtar, was apprehended the evening before, and several sensitive documents were seized, including a map of the Harish Chandra Atomic Research Center in Allahabad and information about Indian army bases and infrastructure in Uttar Pradesh state. Also recovered were documents connected to India's planned purchase of T-90 tanks from Russia and Indian troop movements and countermilitancy operations in Punjab.

Given the suspect's actions and the kind of information found in his possession, his assignment most likely was to gather general intelligence for the Pakistanis rather than support a planned militant attack inside India. Had he been making preparations for a militant attack, information on potential militant targets such as temples, marketplaces and transportation hubs would have been recovered instead of information relating to infrastructure and the military. Moreover, he would not have been sending his intelligence back to Pakistan, but keeping it for a local cell to use in planning its attack. Regardless, if indeed the Indians exposed an ISI operation, Islamabad could retaliate by exposing some Indian intelligence operation inside Pakistan.

Indian authorities say Ahktar had worked for the ISI since 2001, using visits to two brothers living in Lahore, Pakistan, as cover for meetings with his contacts. During the course of the presumably lengthy investigation -- carried out jointly by the Indian Intelligence Bureau and a task force of local police agencies in Uttar Pradesh -- authorities traced Ahktar's financial transactions and cell phone activity, and observed him making frequent cell phone calls to a contact in Pakistan.

Varanasi, a city of religious significance to Hindus, was the scene of a multiple bombing attack in March 2006, including one blast at the Sankat Mochan temple that killed at least 20 people and injured more than 100. The present case, however, does not appear to be connected to a militant operation.

The ISI conducts two types of operations inside India: cultivating various militant groups and collecting intelligence for the Pakistani military. Both the Pakistani military and the ISI would have reason to want the information allegedly gathered by Ahktar. Specifically, the military could use information about the nuclear research facility, the T-90s and the army bases to monitor its main threat, while the ISI could use it to monitor Indian counterinsurgency operations in Punjab, or to pass on information about troop movements and infrastructure in Punjab to various militant groups operating there. Arrests of suspects claiming to work for the ISI are not uncommon in India, though most allegedly conspired to carry out actual militant operations, rather than to channel information back to Pakistan.

Pakistan has been under considerable international pressure to end its support of militants in India, while Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has been cracking down on rogue militant groups that oppose his policies of engagement with India on Kashmir. To compensate for diminished militant support, then, the ISI could be increasing its intelligence-collection efforts in India. Because these kinds of operations usually are interconnected, India could glean vital information about Akhtar's network as well as other operations in India during the course of the interrogation, especially if the suspect was not properly compartmentalized.

Although the suspect's sloppy methods -- using a public Internet café to transmit the information -- probably helped the Indian investigation, this clearly was a sophisticated counterintelligence operation that involved both regular police work and technical surveillance. More leads will likely come of it. Meanwhile, if Ahktar was an ISI spy, the Pakistanis will want to retaliate in kind.