The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorist Squad (Nashik Unit) arrested an employee of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) on alleged charges of spying for a foreign agency, top officials said here on Friday.
The HAL staffer has been accused of supplying confidential and sensitive information about Indian fighter aircraft and the manufacturing facilities in Nashik, said Additional DGP (ATS) Deven Bharti.
Through sustained interrogation of the accused, it is revealed that he was in constant touch with Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), a Pakistani intelligence agency, and was supplying the secret information about Indian fighter aircrafts and their sensitive details, along with the information related to Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), the aircraft manufacturing Unit at Ozar, Nashik, the airbase and the prohibited areas inside the manufacturing Unit to the ISI.
An offence under sections 3, 4 & 5 of the Official Secrets Act, 1923 has been registered against the accused and three mobile handsets with five SIM cards and two memory cards have been seized from his person. The same are being sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory for examination.
The accused was produced before a Special ATS Court in Nashik, which has remanded him to 10 days police custody, said ATS DIG Jayant Naiknavre. Further investigations into the entire racket is underway with the possibility of others being involved.
The operation was carried out and accomplished under the guidance of Deven Bharti, Addl Director General of Police, ATS, DIG Jayant Naiknavre, SP Ravindrasingh Pardeshi and DCP Dr Vinaykumar Rathod by ACP Sunil Yadav, PI Mahadev Waghmode and other police officials.
