Acting on a tip-off to police inspector Bhanupratap Barge of Anti Extortion Cell, three police teams laid traps and nabbed Jadhav at Pune railway station around 8.30 pm on Friday. Classified documents having sensitive information about defence establishments were seized from him.

The police said Jadhav was about to board a train for a particular city where he was going to share the confidential documents with Sayeed Desai, an ISI agent, who had fled from the custody of Sahakarnagar police station on January 24.

Investigations revealed that Desai had lived at Jadhav’s house in Satara for a couple of days after escaping from police custody.

Police teams comprising police inspector Barge, assistant inspector Raghunath Phuge, sub-inspector Sunil Takawale of crime branch and senior police inspector R D Dhure of Bundgarden police station laid traps at three spots in railway station area.

“We had got Jadhav’s photograph from our sources. Accordingly, we identified Jadhav and nabbed him in front of Hotel Sagar near the exit gate of railway station. Confidential documents and three mobile phones were recovered from him during physical searches,” said additional commissioner of police Rajender Singh during a press conference on Saturday.

Singh said Jadhav had served eight years in Indian Army before his court martial in 2004. “Jadhav was held accused by the Army in a case of misappropriation of Rs 1.5 lakh during his service at Jodhpur in 2002. He was sentenced to two years of imprisonment. He happened to meet Desai while serving punishment at Yerawada Central jail,” Singh added.

It was learnt that Jadhav was working with a transport company in Satara after he was released from Yerawada jail in November 2006. Jadhav was booked under section 349 of Official Secrets Act. He was remanded to police custody till February 22. Police said that Jadhav has given some information about Desai’s whereabouts during interrogations. “We would be arresting Desai soon,” said sources from Crime Branch.