The raids were carried out at 19 places in four cities in connection with the War Room leak
The raids were carried out at 19 places in four cities in connection with the War Room leak
NEW DELHI: Almost a year after DNA exposed the unprecedented leak of secrets from the navy’s War Room, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) carried out raids at 19 places belonging to 14 serving military officers, defence ministry officials, and arms agents in four cities across the country.
The raids are part of the CBI’s effort to unearth a well-oiled network of middlemen, corrupt officials, and shadowy figures involved in leaking classified data to international arms firms and other vested interests.
“Apart from the leak of information from the naval War Room and the Air Defence Directorate by the compromised officials”, there is “a larger ring of compromised officials in various wings of the armed forces and the ministry of defence who were giving sensitive information to the accused persons in exchange for gratification,” the CBI said on Friday evening.
DNA blew the lid off the leak of military secrets from the high-security War Room in South Block on July 31 last year.
The CBI searched several offices in the defence ministry, naval headquarters, and naval bases in Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, and Visakhapatnam. Among those raided in New Delhi is arms dealer Abhishek Verma, whose parents were both Congress MPs.
Among the targets were three undersecretaries of the defence ministry (PS Mehra, RS Dodani, and HS Bhatia), six navy officers (among them Commander SM Hanchinal of the Directorate of Special Operations and Diving at naval headquarters, Cdr AK Pandey, Cdr Sushil Bagriya, Cdr Dheeman and Commodore AK Patnaik, commanding officer of INS Subash Chandra Bose) and two army officers (a lieutenant colonel and a major).
None of these people had figured in investigations into the War Room leak by the navy and the air force. The Intelligence Bureau, however, was investigating some of them before the case was handed over to the CBI.
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