Indian police have arrested an employee of the Indian embassy in Russia on charges of spying for Pakistan.
The Anti-Terrorism Department (ATS) of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh police announced on Sunday that the arrested person, Satyendra Sewal, is a resident of Hapur and was posted at the Indian Embassy in the Russian capital, Moscow.
The police said that the ATS had received information from confidential sources that the handlers of Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI were contacting the employees of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs to get information about the Indian Army and its covert tactics. Trying.’
According to local newspaper Indian Express, Satyendra Sewal was in contact with a female agent on the phone and shared confidential information with her.
A police officer involved in the investigation of the case said that Satyendra had access to this (secret) information because he worked at the embassy. The military and embassies regularly exchange information about troop movements and deployments, etc. This is what he shared with the ISI.
Satyendra was on a visit to India for a wedding and has been sent to judicial custody for 14 days after his arrest on Saturday.
The police said that before arresting him, he was summoned to the local office of the Anti-Terrorism Cell to explain his actions, but he could not answer the interrogators’ questions satisfactorily and confessed to his crime during further interrogation. did it.
Sources in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs told local media that it is working closely with investigative agencies.
From a defense perspective, Moscow is an important country for India as Russia has traditionally been a major supplier of Indian military equipment.
India counts Russia as one of its staunchest allies, which has become increasingly important as an energy supplier to India after the Ukraine war.
At present, it is not clear whether Satinder was working only for money or he fell victim to a ‘honey trap’.
In July 2023, Pradeep Kurolkar, a senior scientist at India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), was arrested for allegedly sharing sensitive information with a woman identified as Zara Dasgupta. She was allegedly a Pakistani secret agent.
The police alleged that Pradeep gave them information on sensitive defense projects to the Pakistani agent during an exchange of nude pictures and ‘sexual’ messages.
In February 2023, Baburam Dey, a senior DRDO technical officer in the state of Odisha, was also arrested for allegedly divulging secrets of India’s missile tests to a Pakistani female spy.
In June 2022, the Hyderabad Police arrested Dakka Mallikarjun Reddy, a contract employee of DRDO, for allegedly sharing sensitive information with a suspected agent of Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI. The agent contacted Reddy through Facebook and promised to marry him.
Similarly, in October 2020, Maharashtra Police arrested an officer of India’s state-run defense company ‘Hindustan Aeronautics Limited’ named Deepak Sharasat for allegedly providing details of Indian fighter jets and the company’s manufacturing unit to a Pakistani female spy. .
In a similar case of alleged espionage, the Gujarat police in October 2023 arrested a Pakistani-origin man, who had been granted Indian citizenship in 2006, for allegedly helping Pakistani agents access sensitive information about the Indian Army. had been.
At the time of his arrest, the police had alleged that the man, Labhushankar Maheshwari, had helped Pakistani agents gain access to Indian SIM cards, which they used to hack the phones of children of Indian defense personnel in army schools. .
About a decade before Satyendra Sewal’s case, the infamous Madhuri Gupta case came to light.
Gupta, posted as a press officer at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, allegedly fell in love with an ISI agent and shared documents with him about India’s presence in Afghanistan.
Her alleged activities came to light when she came to Delhi on holiday and was arrested. She died in jail in 2021.