Balasore: A senior official of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) was arrested on Friday for allegedly sharing secret info associated to India’s defence sector with a Pakistani spy, the Odisha Police stated. The 57-year-old official was posted on the DRDO’s Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur in Odisha’s Balasore district, it stated.
Chandipur has two DRDO check ranges — PXE (Proof and Experimental Establishment) and ITR. India evaluates the performances of its missiles, rockets and air-borne weapons programs at these two ranges.
“A senior employee of ITR-Chandipur has been arrested. He managed to transmit some sensitive information regarding missile tests to a foreign agent,” stated Himansu Kumar Lal, the Inspector-General of Police (Eastern Range).
The official was arrested on the idea of a criticism filed on the Chandipur police station, he stated.
The particulars of the data he shared could possibly be ascertained after a radical interrogation, stated Balasore’s Superintendent of Police (SP) Sagarika Nath.
A case has been filed towards him beneath IPC sections 120A and 120B (legal conspiracy), in addition to the Official Secrets Act, police stated.
He was allegedly sharing delicate defence-related info with a Pakistani agent for “sexual as well as monetary gratification”, they stated.
WhatsApp chats and sexually specific images and movies had been present in his telephone, which was seized, they added.
In September 2021, 5 contractual staff of ITR-Chandipur had been arrested in one other espionage case.
A contractual worker of ITR-Chandipur was arrested in an identical case in 2015. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2021 for sharing info with Pakistan’s ISI.
