HYDERABAD, 14 August — Police in the southern Indian city of Visakhapatnam have arrested a naval officer of Eastern Naval Command of the Indian Navy for passing on classified documents to a Nepal-based agent of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), police sources said yesterday.
They said a junior commissioned officer (JCO), Jasbir Singh, was picked up yesterday after he sent certain sensitive documents to his contacts in Katmandu by e-mail from a cyber cafe in the port city, about 650 km from Hyderabad, capital of Andhra Pradesh state. The officer is in custody after having been charged in a court under the Official Secrets Act, Visakhapatnam city Police Commissioner A.K. Khan said.
Police sources in Hyderabad said the arrest of the 44-year-old officer, who was in charge of the photo laboratory at the naval command headquarters, followed a tip-off by intelligence agencies.
They said sensitive documents, maps and photographs were seized from the officer’s house in the port city which has several vital defense establishments. Khan said a special team was being sent to Nepal to verify the information that the officer had disclosed to the police during interrogation.
