Army man nabbed in Jaisalmer for espionage

NEWDELHI: An Indian Army jawan posted in a tank regiment in Jaisalmer has been arrested by the Rajasthan Police after he was allegedly found to be virtually honey trapped by Pakistan-based ISI operatives on social media and passing critical military information to them.

“The jawan has been arrested in Jaisalmer by the Rajasthan Police and the army is providing all possible assistance to the civilian authorities in this investigation,” defence PRO Colonel Sambit Ghosh told ANI.

The jawan, identified as Sombir, belongs to Haryana and was posted in the Armoured Corps of the Indian Army. Sources in the army said the jawan was in touch with a suspected ISI spy using the profile name of ‘Anika Chopra’ on Facebook and was chatting regu- l arl y on s oci al media and exchanging details and information about the jawan’s armoured unit and its movement.

The army is now tracking multiple accounts of officers and jawans to probe if the Pakistani spy account was in touch with other personnel to get information from them, they said.

Sources in the army said the jawan was apprehended and interrogated by intelligence agencies for over four months after he was found to be in touch with Pakistani ISI operatives on social media and was being interrogated by the intelligence agencies and the army for the information supplied by him to the Pakistani spy agency.

In the recent past, a group captain of the air force was apprehended by counter-intelligence units for sharing information about transport aircraft operations.