New Delhi: Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday assured that those involved in the sensational corporate espionage case will not be spared.
Talking to reporters, the Home Minister said that the BJP-led NDA government should be commended for unearthing the scandal in which classified documents, including an input for upcoming Finance Minister's budget speech, were allegedly stolen and leaked to corporate houses.
The minister further assured that the Delhi Police will thoroughly investigate the matter and culprits will be booked.
When asked whether such documents had been leaked during previous governments too, the senior BJP leader refused to rule out any such possibility.
Five senior executives from top energy firms and two consultants are among 12 people arrested in the case so far.
According to Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ashok Chand, the arrested company executives were receivers of the stolen documents, which have been recovered by police teams during raids from their establishments.
Two energy consultants -- Santanu Saikia, a former journalist, now running a petro web portal and Prayas Jain – were arrested last morning as they were also suspected to be receivers of the stolen documents.
The Delhi Police had on Thursday arrested five people - two Petroleum Ministry employees and three others - for stealing documents and leaking them to corporate houses.
Rakesh Kumar, 30, Lalta Prasad, 36 - both brothers and residents of Delhi, and Raj Kumar Chaubey, 39, a resident of Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, were held red-handed with photocopies of some secret documents in Shastri Bhawan on February 17.
Based on information provided by them, government employees Asharam, 58, and Ishwar Singh, 56 were also arrested. They were part of the multi-tasking staff (MTS) in Shastri Bhawan.
Police said Lalta Prasad and Rakesh Kumar were on the payroll of Jain and he used to pay them Rs 40,000 each per month.
The police complaint said the stolen documents included inputs for the forthcoming union budget and a letter concerning the Prime Minister's office. The documents were also related to the power and coal ministries, police said.
The first information report details how the "secret papers" were photocopied after office hours by the arrested, who used duplicate keys to open the offices after entering Shastri Bhawan with the help of forged identity cards and temporary passes obtained fraudulently.
