Cuttack: One of the five arrested in the ITR-Chandipur espionage case had received Rs 38,000 from a bank account in Dubai, Crime Branch (CB) ADG, Sanjeeb Panda informed on Tuesday.
“The investigation has so far revealed that one of the accused had received the cash in two instalments from Dubai. The bank account details and other financial transactions of the other four accused are also being verified,” he said.
The five accused include a permanent employee and four contractual staff of the ITR. The CB took them on remand for seven days on September 18. “The other accused are being interrogated on various aspects including finances,” he said.
The ADG said efforts are also on to trace the call detail record (CDR) of all the accused. “All the social media accounts (Facebook and Instagram) of the accused will be thoroughly examined. The mobile phones seized from them will be sent for forensic analysis. We will also try to ascertain if the accused had received money through any other means,” he said.
The role of a female conduit, who came in contact with the five accused over Facebook, is also under the scanner. “She was using a UK based telephone number to chat with the five accused through Facebook messenger and Whatsapp for sharing/exchange of information,” he said.
Panda said that a three-member team of the Indian Air Force is now investigating the case. “The National Investigation Agency (NIA) team is yet to interrogate the accused,” he added.
Also Read: Air Force Probes ITR Spy Case In Odisha
After arriving in Cuttack, the IAF team had a meeting with Crime Branch’s Additional SP Prashant Kumar Bisoyi. The team later interrogated the accused about the information on the missiles they have recorded on their mobile phone.
Sources said that the NIA will take up the investigation after the evidence of the link of the five accused with the ISI handler in UP is established.
An official, requesting anonymity, had earlier said the accused have confessed to passing information on the target range of different missiles test-fired from the ITR launch pad, ordnance depo and the exact location of the launch pad to the ISI handler.
