The Delhi Police on Thursday claimed to have arrested five people, including two officials from the Union Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, in connection with the theft of official documents from the premises of the Ministry.
The accused have been booked on the charges of criminal trespass, theft, and forgery under Sections 457/468/471/120-B of the IPC. Police may slap sections of the Official Secrets Act once the papers recovered from their possession are found to be confidential, a top police official said.
The Delhi Police is questioning 25 people — including Shantanu Saikia, who runs Petro Watch web portal, and Shailendra Jha, who is an employee of a big corporate house dealing in petrochemicals. They are being questioned at Chanakyapuri office of Crime Branch.
Besides these, three former journalists are being questioned at the Kamla Market office of the Crime Branch. They are currently employed in the corporate communications wing of a company. However, sources refused to disclose their names and that of the company concerned.
The Delhi Police Commissioner, BS Bassi, said that the stolen documents were being sold to some individuals of a private energy consultancy companies as well as to those in the petrochemical and energy industry. The Delhi police chief refrained from naming the companies. All those recipients of the stolen property will be questioned, Bassi added.
Meanwhile, terming it as a serious case, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said: “They will be severely dealt with. Police are probing the case. The Government will come down hard on them.” Asked whether any corporate lobbyist could be involved, the Petroleum Minister said it was up to the police to investigate.
“The Government is conscious. Agencies are investigating and they will come out with full facts… strict action within the purview of the law will be taken against all those involved,” he said.
According to police, there was a tip-off that two persons, along with their associates, are involved in procuring, obtaining, stealing the official documents by trespassing on the offices of Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas at Shastri Bhavan on February 17.
“Three people came in an Indigo car near Shastri Bhavan. Two persons alighted and went inside while the third remained in the car. After around two hours, when the two persons entered the car, all three persons were apprehended,” said the officer.
“The accused were identified as Delhi’s lalta Prasad, 36, Rakesh Kumar, 30, and Ghaziabad’s Raj Kumar Chaubey, 39. Official documents have been recovered,” the officer said.
Duplicate keys used by them for accessing the offices of the Ministry officials, forged ID-cards and fraudulently obtained temporary passes were also recovered. The Indigo car that they were riding at the time of police raid was having an unauthorised signage ‘Bharat Sarkar’.
During their interrogation, it was revealed that lalta Prasad and Rakesh Kumar are brothers and both had earlier been temporarily employed as Multi Tasking Staff at Shastri Bhawan. In 2012, both left the employment but during their stint, they realised that they could easily lay hand on the official documents.
The arrested further disclosed that they were assisted by their fathers, Asharam (58) and Ishwar Singh (56), both Multi Tasking Staff employees at Shastri Bhawan.
Recently, CCTV cameras were installed on the premises of Shastri Bhawan. The accused had disabled the CCTV cameras at the time of their entry into the Shastri Bhawan. The investigation team is looking for the role of those who could have assisted in blocking the CCTV surveillance to facilitate the entry of these persons, the official added.