BSF jawan honey-trapped by Pakistan's ISI: What exactly is this inducement method to extract information?

The Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) has arrested a BSF jawan from Noida on the charge of sharing vital information with Pakistan ISI agents, state police chief OP Singh said Wednesday.

Achutanand Misra, hailing from Madhya Pradesh's Rewa district, was "honey-trapped" into sharing information about unit operational details, police academy and training centre by a woman who claimed to be a defence reporter, the director general of police (DGP) said.

What is a honey trap?

The honey trap is one of the most common tropes present in spy thrillers where an attractive man or woman is used to gain secrets from an individual, usually in a position of power in the state. The most well-known master of this practice was Markus Wolf, an East German spymaster who is said to have used good-looking male spies to target single, lonely women in West Germany, the secretaries of powerful individuals.

He is said to have called these individuals ‘Romeo spies’, and the Stasi penetrated almost all levels of West German government, including that of the West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. Writing in his autobiography, Wolf claimed that he never pushed his officers to use these techniques: “They were sharp operators who realised that a lot can be done with sex. This is true in business and espionage because it opens up channels of communication more quickly than other approaches." And he didn’t have a shred of remorse as he pointed out, “I was running an intelligence service, not a lonely hearts club.”

What we know about the BSF case so far

Misra, who is married and has two children, was interrogated by ATS and BSF officials on Monday and Tuesday in Noida. Prima facie, there is enough evidence to prove that he has committed crime under the Official Secrets Act, Singh said.

He was recruited in the Border Security Force (BSF) in 2006 and had come into contact with the woman in 2016. After sometime, he started sharing information about unit location, details of ammunition and pictures of the BSF camp, the DGP said.

Later, he started WhatsApp chat with a phone number registered in Pakistan and the details of the conversation indicate that he was being influenced on religious conversion and Kashmir, the officer said.

The Pakistani number was saved in his mobile phone as "Pakistani dost" (friend), the DGP said, but declined to divulge the number to the media on which Misra had been chatting.

Misra has accepted his crime and several cyber evidences have been found through his phone and Facebook account, the DGP said.

The pictures and videos sent by him have also been found in the extraction and this amounts to crime under sections 3,4,5,9 of the Official Secrets Act, 121A of the IPC, 66D of the IT Act, he said.

He will be produced before a Lucknow court for taking him on police remand for detailed interrogation.

Information regarding who all were with him in this network, the motivation which led him into sharing this information, whether he got money in return as well and his accounts will also be checked, the DGP said. It will also be ascertained as to what information he has passed on and what damage has been caused because of it.

"We have come to these conclusions based on the preliminary investigations," the DGP said, pointing out the need to create more awareness among the members of the armed and paramilitary forces.

The UP ATS is in constant touch with BSF officials and their intelligence branch.

There were inputs that the Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was "honey-trapping" jawans of the Army and paramilitary forces using Facebook and the Military Intelligence of Chandigarh had tipped off the UP ATS about a fake social-media profile sometime ago.