Balasore: A local court handed down life imprisonment to Ishwar Chandra Behera, contractual cameraman of Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur in this district after convicting him of spying for Pakistani intelligence agency ISI, Thursday.
The district and sessions judge Girija Prasad Mohapatra pronounced the order on Behera after a prolonged hearing in the espionage case. Behera was arrested on charge of spying for the ISI December 22, 2014.
A native of Kantipur village near Baisinga in Mayurbhanj district, Ishwar was employed as a cameraperson at the ITR on contractual basis in 2007. He had been spying for ISI for eight-ten months prior to his arrest.
He was in touch with ISI agent Asif Ali and providing him secret military details about our country to him in exchange of money.
The court held him guilty of passing confidential information to ISI regarding testing of missiles at the ITR in Chandipur. He was convicted under Sections 121A and 120B of the IPC, and 3, 4 and 5 of the Official Secrets Act.
There are proofs of transfer of money to Ishwar’s bank account from various countries like Abu Dhabi, reports said.
Ishwar was in constant touch with his handler over phone and had met him at least 10 times during his trips to Kolkata, a police official had said.
PNN