A senior naval officer Rajbeer Singh was arrested by Andhra Pradesh police at the port city of Visakhapatnam on charges of espionage and links with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Singh, working as deputy chief petty officer, was taken into custody on Saturday last and was today produced before a city court, which remanded him to a 15-day judicial custody. Following an alert by the Intelligence Bureau (IB), the city police swooped on Singh's residence and recovered several incriminating documents, five floppies containing classified defence information and details of naval exercises, the deputy commissioner of police, Visakhapatnam, Surya Prakash told reporters by telephone.
The interrogation revealed that the naval official was allegedly passing on vital information to his contacts who are suspected to have links with terrorist organisations. The tainted official was introduced to the contacts at a hotel in Kathmandu in 1996 by one Balwinder Singh and since then the spying operation was going on, the police said.
Singh had so far allegedly received Rs 1.5 lakh as remuneration for leaking valuable defence information pertaining to sub-marines, ships and torpedoes, police said.
Police recovered from his residence the travel tickets, hotel receipts pertaining to his stay in Nepal, sketches and details of naval establishments.
Bureau Report