Balasore: The SDJM Court Saturday granted Odisha Crime Branch to take the five earlier arrested contractual staffers of DRDO’s office at Chandipur on seven-day remand in connection with espionage.
The Crime Branch’s ADG Sanjeev Panda said that the five arrested will be interrogated to gather more information, for which the probing-agency had appealed to the court to take them on remand.
The five were arrested for espionage at Integrated Test Range (ITR), Chandipur as they were allegedly leaking defence secrets to Pakistani intelligence agency ISI through a woman agent who lured them.
The accused were honey trapped for providing information on secret activities from the missile test facility, the CB ADG Panda stated.
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Meanwhile, the Crime Branch picked up four citizens of Bangladesh from a slum in Balasore town in connection with the DRDO espionage case Saturday morning. They had allegedly received money from Pakistan through their savings accounts, a senior official said.
It is pertinent to mention, Chandipur police is acting on a tip-off and have arrested four persons Tuesday and registered a case (No-76, Dated-14.09.2021, under the Sections-120-B/121-A/34 of IPC written with Sections-3, 4 and 5 of Official Secrets Act, 1923) in this connection. Subsequently, one more employee was also apprehended.
PNN