The Delhi Police Crime Branch arrested a low-ranking staffer of the Ministry of Defence and recovered classified documents in the corporate espionage case. Housekeeper Virender Singh, 31, who had provided the forged identity card used by the main accused lalta Prasad, was remanded in one-day police custody. Crime Branch officials consulted the Defence Ministry to assess the importance of the information written on the recovered documents. With the seizure of the documents related to the Defence Ministry, the Delhi Police is mulling to invoke the Official Secrets Act into the case.
Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi told reporters that the police have, so far, not come across any evidence that senior officials of any Ministry were involved in the leak. “Investigation so far has revealed that the people who used to procure Government documents used to rely on the employees who are the lowest on the ladder. They used to tell them that this person is the target and bring all the documents you find in his office. They used to identify the document of their choice from the bunch.
So far we have not come across the name of any senior officer and neither we had any evidence relying on which we can say so,” said Bassi. Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ravindra Yadav said Kumar had also provided Prasad blank official letterheads for preparing forged letters which were used to project that their vehicle number Dl13C-4734 was hired to perform official duties of Director of Audit Defence Services. It was also to project that a contract was signed with M/s Dharam Singh Travel Agency by Office of the Director General of Audit, Defence Services, l-II Block, Brassey Avenue, New Delhi to this effect, he said.
Sources told The Pioneer that the Crime Branch was informed about two keymakers based in East Delhi’s laxmi Nagar and central Delhi’s INA market, who used to make the duplicate keys of the locks of the ministries. They were also picked up for questioning.