In one espionage case, a civilian employee of Rewari’s Military Engineering Services (MES) in Haryana was arrested for passing classified information to a Pakistani military intelligence unit after getting caught on Facebook.
On September 16 (Wednesday), based on specific input from Lucknow-based Military Intelligence (MI), the Special Task Force (STF) of the Haryana Police arrested Mahesh Kumar. He has reportedly been in contact with agents of Pakistan’s military intelligence unit for the past two and a half years and has received money from them on multiple occasions.
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In June, the MI in Lucknow received an entry that the user of a mobile phone number, used by Kumar, likely a Military Engineering Services (MES) employee stationed in Jaipur, Rajasthan, is sharing confidential military information with a young man associated with Pakistani MI in exchange for money. It was learned that he addressed the Pakistani operative calling him “Madamji.” The MI unit launched an operation codenamed “Operation Madamji” to identify the suspect and determine the veracity of the information.
The defendant was identified as Mahesh Kumar, 28, the son of Rajendra Singh, a Rewari resident who worked as a civilian janitor in MES Jaipur. He had a friendship with at least three known and established Pakistan Intelligence Operation (PIO) Facebook accounts.
It was also learned that Kumar has received at least two payments of 5,000 rupees each from his Pakistani handlers via Kerala. The payment module was very similar to what had emerged in the Rajasthan-based spy case, ‘Op Desert Chase’, in which Vikas Kumar and Chiman Lal were arrested.
In the first week of September, Mahesh Kumar was found in Rewari and, wasting no time, the case was shared with STF Haryana and a joint team from both agencies began to develop it further. A swift operation was planned to arrest and question the suspect from September 13 to 14. However, before Lucknow MI could obtain the desired sanctions and station a team near Rewari, the suspect suddenly moved out of Haryana.
Subsequently, STF Haryana indicated that the suspect is likely to visit Rewari again on September 16. Therefore, a new arrest plan was drawn up for Thursday or Friday (September 18) together. The Jaipur-based MI unit also joined the investigation. After the suspect’s arrival in Rewari on Wednesday, the STF team learned that he has plans to leave Haryana in the afternoon.
Therefore, he was detained by STF Haryana on Wednesday afternoon from Rewari along with his mobile device and brought in for an initial examination and question. The accused was subjected to joint interrogations by the MI Lucknow, STF Haryana and MI Jaipur teams.
During questioning, Mahesh Kumar admitted to coming into contact with a known PIO Facebook account under the name ‘Harleen Gill’ in July 2018, in which he had only sent the friend request to the PIO account. They became friends on Facebook and used to communicate via text and audio / video chat on Facebook Messenger. The account was run by a young woman, probably in her thirties, who claimed to be working with the office of the Chief Controller of Defense Accounts (PCDA) in Jalandhar. The PIO’s Facebook account (in the name of ‘Harleen Gill’) was subsequently deactivated.
Later, he received a friend request from the same PIO in 2019, this time from a Facebook account by the name of ‘Harman Kour’. They started communicating on Facebook Messenger and then graduated from WhatsApp. The defendant was found to have been in contact with at least two PIO WhatsApp numbers. They used to exchange text and audio messages with each other via WhatsApp and they also used to video chat.
He agreed to have shared the ORBAT of a Jaipur-based Army Brigade, details of some senior officers in Jaipur, PCDA Jaipur location, MES complaint records details, COVID-19 status of the Jaipur Cantt and publication order of civil employees of MES. He used to collect information related to the movement by engaging in conversation with the service personnel who came to the MES office in Jaipur for various purposes. He also agreed to have activated a WhatsApp number for the PIO by sharing OTP in 2019. However, he claimed that he removed it in a couple of days.
The PIO asked him to send the contact of other service personnel in Jaipur and Bikaner, details of units moving to or entering from / to Jaipur, COVID-19 status in Jaipur Cantt, publishing details of other MES employees. To further lure him, the PIO once assured the defendant that they will send him to Delhi.
Mahesh Kumar admitted to transmitting her account details from the Punjab National Bank to the PIO and receiving 5,000 rupees twice to the bank account as a gift from her in September 2019 and January 2020. However, it is suspected that she had received money of the PIO on more occasions. More research is ongoing in this regard.
Through the defendant is a cleaning staff in MES Jaipur whose main task is to clean the offices there, it was found that he has photos of various letters / notices on his mobile device, including some with security classification and others that provide the details of all units / sub-units in Jaipur Cantt. He also had photos of circulars related to COVID-19 and a list of MES employees with their mobile phone numbers on his phone.
The defendant was found to have deleted all his chats with the PIOs. It is likely that during the two and a half years of communication with the PIO the accused has spent more than he is confessing. His mobile phone has been sent for forensic extraction and STF is known to have found many documents on it that he was not supposed to keep. Apart from that, it was also learned that traces of their communication and the passing of information to the PIO were found.
The accused was presented before the Magistrate of the Guard on the night of September 16. He has been booked for violation of the Official Secrecy Law and an FIR has been filed in this regard in PS Dharuhera. He was expected to be presented in court in Rewari in the afternoon after undergoing a COVID-19 test. The Haryana STF can request police custody for a few more days to further investigate the case and complete the formalities.
While defense authorities are formulating and approving various instructions and policies at regular intervals so that all ranks are aware of the nuances of the Pakistani spy ring, it appears that many are still getting carried away and still stuck on social media for the Pakistanis. agencies.
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