The Hyderabad Police has arrested a low ranking employee of the Indian Army on charges of sedition after he was found to be passing sensitive information to a Pakistani spy.
Subedar Naik Patan Kumar Poddar, working at the Army booking Center at Secunderabad Railway station for making travel arrangements of Army personnel, was arrested by the Central Crime Station of Hyderabad Police with the cooperation of the Army following an alert from the Intelligence agencies.The agencies had come across Poddar frequently chatting with a Pakistani woman over Facebook and also over mobile and passing sensitive information to her.
The woman who used the fake name of Anushka Agarwal for intimate chatting for quite some time, turned out to be a honey trap to gather information from Poddar. Officials believe she was working for Pakistan’s external spy agency ISI.Hyderabad Police Commissioner Mahinder Reddy said that the cases were booked against the Subedar Naik under official secrets act as well as under Prize Chit Money Circulation Act 1977 as he was also running a multi-level marketing business.
Poddar was produced before a city court and was remanded to judicial custody. Police officials said they will take him again in to custody for questioning. The investigators were also trying to find out whether ‘Anushka Agarwal’ had developed similar contacts with other people in the country.Sources said that the woman had sent her nude photos to Poddar claiming to be herself, and enamored him. Poddar on his part used to call her “Nargis”.
Sources said that during the year long contact, the lady managed to gather information from Poddar about strategic bases of Army in the country, and movement of Army personnel and Defence units in Hyderabad.Poddar was able to pass the information about the movement of the personnel as he was sitting at the Secunderabad booking center of the Army and used to talk to the Army Jawans coming from different places. He provided information to Pakistani agent about artillery regiments, commands, corps, division headquarters and brigades.