Indian Army Major caught spying for Pak, tip-off came from US

Around the time last month when the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) was alerted about the possibility of one of their officers being involved in espionage, another sensitive counter-intelligence operation involving the Ministry of Defence (MoD) was in progress.

For over two weeks now, top Government sources say, an Army Major has been kept in “safe custody” of the Military Intelligence (MI). The officer—posted in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands—is alleged to have passed on classified information to Pakistan.

The first tip-off in what could develop into another espionage scandal, according to sources, came from American authorities. Suspicious internet traffic first came to the notice of American intelligence agencies when intercepts showed a user in Andaman and Nicobar Islands had dispatched a picture of a serving Indian Brigadier, who was attending a training programme in the US, to Pakistan.

Indian agencies quickly zeroed in on the officer and a quiet operation was planned to call him to New Delhi. Sources say the officer pleaded ignorance of the traffic from his computer to Pakistan saying it could have been generated by some virus or unknown software.

However, suspicion persisted since the Major’s computer had been recently formatted and cleaned of all contents. An early forensic examination done in New Delhi revealed the dispatch of classsified military information, some of which should not have been in the officer’s possession. The hard disk of the officer’s computer has since been sent by military authorities to a Hyderabad laboratory for accessing the erased contents.

“I do not have any information yet. I will have to find the details and then can get back to you,” Army spokesperson Col S Om Singh said when contacted for a reaction.

Both Defence Minister A.K. Antony and Home Minister P. Chidambaram are learnt to be aware of the developments in the case, given the serious implications involved.........................Source

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