Odisha: ITR Officer Honey-Trapped By Pakistani Agent, Arrested For Leaking Info

Balasore: Another honey trap case has emerged from Defence Research and Development Organisation’s high-security Interim Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur in Odisha’s Balasore district with the arrest of an officer on Friday for allegedly passing sensitive defence information to a Pakistani agent.

Identifying the accused a Senior Technical Officer of the ITR, IG Police, Eastern Range, Himanshu Lal informed that a case has been registered against him at Chandipur police station under Sections 120-A, 120-B and 31 of the IPC, and Sections 3, 4 and 5 of the Official Secrets Act on a written report by sub-inspector Chandra Sekhar Mohanty.

“The officer of the ITR transmitted/shared the secrets of sensitive defence information regarding missile tests to a Pakistani agent for sexual as well as monetary gratification through WhatsApp conversation and exchange of sexual images and videos,” Lal said during the presser which was also attended by Balasore SP Sagarika Nath.

The officer was in contact with the agent, who was operating from Rawalpindi, for over a year. A mobile phone has been seized from his possession, he added.

Further probe is underway to ascertain involvement of others in the case.

In September last year, five contractual workers of ITR were arrested on charges of spying for a foreign intelligence agency, suspected to be Pakistan’s notorious ISI. The additional district judge’s court in Balasore had sentenced Ishwar Behera, a former contractual cameraperson with ITR, to life imprisonment, on charges of spying for ISI on February 11 that year.