More Army officers suspected to be in 'espionage ring' - The Economic Times
NEW DELHI: Not convinced with the Army’s theory blaming “hacking” for the transfer of nearly 2,500 sensitive military files from the computer of an Army Major posted in Andamans to a Pakistan-based ISI operative, the NIA is now probing the possible involvement of other Army officers in “supplying” the highly classified data to the Major.
The scope of the NIA probe is being widened for two reasons. First, most of the 2,500 files recovered from Major’s personal computer related to commands other than his own, such as Western and Northern Commands, and put out strategic details such as deployment patterns and operational contingency plans. There is no way a Major, that too posted with the Andamans and Nicobar tri-service command, would have access to such information.
The second reason why the NIA is strongly suspecting the involvement of more Army officers in what could be an “espionage ring” is because its sleuths discovered that some files were deleted from the Major’s computer after it was seized by the military authorities here and was in their “safe custody.” Though the CFSL did recover the nearly 2,500 files deleted by the Major before the hard disk was seized, it has been unable to trace back the nearly 600 files that were deleted “in a far more professional manner” while the Major was still being questioned by the Army. Army sources, however, denied any files were deleted while the computer was in its custody.
“More people could be involved,” a senior MHA official said while pointing out that they may have been source of the sensitive information that the Major could not have accessed all by himself. These people are now also suspected to be behind the deletion of files after the computer was taken away from the Major. “We are probing as to who had access to the computer when it was in Army’s custody,” the official said while noting that hacking by an external agency like ISI was not possible in this case as the computer was never connected to the internet.
The NIA is believed to also be questioning the Major for more links in the alleged espionage racket.
Counter-intelligence has conveyed to the Home Ministry that action should be taken against the Major, an officer of the Bihar regiment posted with the 108 Brigade.
It were the US intelligence experts who, while tracking an ISI computer based in Pakistan, tipped off their Indian counterparts on how huge amounts of classified Indian Army data were being fed into it from a computer in the Andamans.
While the officer maintains that his computer had been hacked by the ISI through a malware, all files from the hard disk had been deleted by the Major himself before it was seized. Laboratory tests also confirmed that a second attempt was made to delete the files while the Major’s computer was in the custody of the authorities.
NEW DELHI: Not convinced with the Army’s theory blaming “hacking” for the transfer of nearly 2,500 sensitive military files from the computer of an Army Major posted in Andamans to a Pakistan-based ISI operative, the NIA is now probing the possible involvement of other Army officers in “supplying” the highly classified data to the Major.
The scope of the NIA probe is being widened for two reasons. First, most of the 2,500 files recovered from Major’s personal computer related to commands other than his own, such as Western and Northern Commands, and put out strategic details such as deployment patterns and operational contingency plans. There is no way a Major, that too posted with the Andamans and Nicobar tri-service command, would have access to such information.
The second reason why the NIA is strongly suspecting the involvement of more Army officers in what could be an “espionage ring” is because its sleuths discovered that some files were deleted from the Major’s computer after it was seized by the military authorities here and was in their “safe custody.” Though the CFSL did recover the nearly 2,500 files deleted by the Major before the hard disk was seized, it has been unable to trace back the nearly 600 files that were deleted “in a far more professional manner” while the Major was still being questioned by the Army. Army sources, however, denied any files were deleted while the computer was in its custody.
“More people could be involved,” a senior MHA official said while pointing out that they may have been source of the sensitive information that the Major could not have accessed all by himself. These people are now also suspected to be behind the deletion of files after the computer was taken away from the Major. “We are probing as to who had access to the computer when it was in Army’s custody,” the official said while noting that hacking by an external agency like ISI was not possible in this case as the computer was never connected to the internet.
The NIA is believed to also be questioning the Major for more links in the alleged espionage racket.
Counter-intelligence has conveyed to the Home Ministry that action should be taken against the Major, an officer of the Bihar regiment posted with the 108 Brigade.
It were the US intelligence experts who, while tracking an ISI computer based in Pakistan, tipped off their Indian counterparts on how huge amounts of classified Indian Army data were being fed into it from a computer in the Andamans.
While the officer maintains that his computer had been hacked by the ISI through a malware, all files from the hard disk had been deleted by the Major himself before it was seized. Laboratory tests also confirmed that a second attempt was made to delete the files while the Major’s computer was in the custody of the authorities.
