New Delhi: A 31-year-old Indian Navy sailor has been arrested for allegedly passing on sensitive defense information to a female Pakistani intelligence agent. The action was taken by the Counter Intelligence Cell of Andhra Pradesh Police. The accused was arrested from INS Agrani in Coimbatore, where he had reached for a training course. The accused has been identified as Pradeep Mukherjee of West Bengal. He joined the Indian Navy as a sailor in 2014 and was posted at the Eastern Naval Command based in Visakhapatnam. A few days ago he had reached Coimbatore for a management development course.
According to investigation, a few months ago a woman contacted Pradeep through social media. The conversation between the two escalated and during this time the woman allegedly started obtaining confidential information related to the Navy from him. Officials suspect that this contact was linked to Pakistan's intelligence agency.
Accused of sharing sensitive information related to Navy
According to the investigating agencies, Pradeep may have shared information related to strategic resources, movement of ships and operational arrangements related to the Visakhapatnam naval base. However, the investigation into how much and what information actually went out is still ongoing. The counter intelligence team started monitoring Pradeep after suspicious digital activities were detected. After the allegations were confirmed in the investigation, action was taken with the permission of naval authorities.
The team was taken into custody from Coimbatore and taken to Vijayawada.
A special team of counter intelligence reached INS Agrani on Saturday morning and detained Pradeep. After this he was produced before the local magistrate, from where after getting a transit warrant, he was taken to the counter intelligence headquarters in Vijayawada. Now the investigating agencies are trying to find out how much defense information was leaked and whether the accused had received any money in return through hawala or digital payment.