Rewari (Haryana): A civilian defence employee was arrested for passing on classified information to a Pakistani Military Intelligence (MI) unit after he had been honey-trapped on Facebook. This is the second such incidence in India in the last couple of months. A similar type of incident had happened in Uttar Pradesh a few weeks back.
Official sources told this agency that based on a specific input of Lucknow-based Indian Military Intelligence (MI), the Haryana Police’s Special Task Force (STF) arrested Mahesh Kumar, the civilian employee of Military Engineering Services (MES) here. He was nabbed Wednesday for sharing the information to a young woman associated with the Pakistani MI in return for money.
Kumar, according to police, was reportedly in touch with operatives of the Pakistani MI unit for the last two-and-a-half- years. He has received money from them on multiple occasions.
Sources said that in June, Lucknow MI received the input that a mobile number was passing on defence related information to a woman. The woman was later found to be an operative of Pakistani military. Police traced the number to Kumar, who was posted in Jaipur.
Kumar addressed the Pakistani operative as ‘Madamji’. An operation code-named ‘Op Madamji’ was launched by the MI unit to identify the suspect. Also it would look into the importance of information that was being passed on.
Kumar worked as a civilian cleaning staff in MES Jaipur. He was friends with at least three known and established Pakistani Intelligence Operative (PIO)-run Facebook accounts. Sources said that Kumar had received at least two payments of Rs 5,000 each from his Pakistani handlers via Kerala.
The MI shared the case details with the STF Haryana and a joint team of both the agencies investigated it further. A swift operation to apprehend and interrogate the suspect was planned for September 13-14. However before the Lucknow MI could obtain desired sanctions and place a team near this town, the suspect suddenly moved out of Haryana. The STF Haryana recently indicated that Kumar was likely to visit Rewari again, Wednesday. As a result, STF Haryana and Lucknow and Jaipur units of MI formulated a new plan to arrest him.
After his arrest Wednesday afternoon, Kumar’s mobile phone was seized and he was taken for initial examination and questioning.
Official sources said during, questioning Kumar admitted to have sent a friend request to a Facebook account. The account was in the name of ‘Harleen Gill’ and he sent the request in July 2018. They became friends on Facebook and used to communicate through text and audio/video chats via Messenger.
Kumar was found to have been in touch with at least two WhatsApp numbers of the PIO. They used to exchange text and audio messages between them over WhatsApp and also used to video chat.
Sources said he admitted before the police that he had shared the ORBAT of a Jaipur-based Army Brigade, details of some senior officers in Jaipur, location of PCDA Jaipur, details of MES complaint records, COVID-19 situation within the Jaipur cantonment and a posting order of civilian MES employees.