Officer arrested for allegedly leaking defense secrets to Pak agents.
A senior employee of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur in Odisha's Balasore district was arrested for allegedly leaking defense secrets to a woman Pakistani ISI operative after being honey-trapped on social media.The ITR is a well-equipped missile test and evaluation center of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
Police identified the ITR employee as Baburam Dey (51),a resident of Jaleswar area in Balasore district.Police said Dey was posted as a technical officer in ITR's telemetry department and had knowledge of highly sensitive classified defense information related to missile launch.
Police sources said Dey, who was present during testing of all missiles and cluster bombs by the DRDO and other defense agencies at the ITR, Chandipur, allegedly shared sensitive information about the proposed testing of some missiles with the Pakistani agent.Dey also clicked photos of the prohibited areas and equipment at the test range and sent them to the ISI operative.
During interrogation the police found that Dey had been communicating from two phone numbers - 9437533810 and 7008485965 with the Pakistani woman,who used a WhatsApp number (917207458828). The IP address of the woman's WhatsApp number was located in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
"We have found enough evidence against the ITR employee for sharing classified and highly sensitive information related to missile testing to the foreign agent in Pakistan for sexual gratification.We also strongly suspect he received money from the foreign agent for spying against India," inspector general of police (eastern range) Himanshu Lal said.
Balasore SP Sagarika Nath said the district police started surveillance on the ITR employee after receiving information from sources about his alleged anti-national and espionage activities for the last few months.Sagarika said the accused's bank details and phone calls are being examined.
Instances of espionage had surfaced at the ITR, Chandipur in the past as well.
Four contractual employees were arrested on September 14,2021,for allegedly sharing classified defense secrets to Pakistan agent.The Odisha crime branch subsequently took over the probe from Balasore police and found that the four accused were honey-trapped by a Pakistani woman.One of them had allegedly received money from an agent in Dubai.
Iswar Chandra Behera,a former contractual cameraman at ITR, was arrested on January 23,2015,by Odisha police on charges of spying for Pakistan agent.In February 2021,Behera was awarded life imprisonment by the additional district and sessions court of Balasore for spying for Pakistan and waging a war against India.
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