A senior technical officer of Interim Test Range, Chandipur – India’s premier missile testing facility – has been arrested on charges of passing sensitive information to his handler, suspected to be a Pakistan national.

The officer has been identified as Baburam Dey (51), a technical officer in the telemetry department of ITR.

“Mr. Dey was usually present, in view of his work at ITR, during the testing of almost all missiles and cluster bombs by Defence Research Development Organisation [DRDO] and other defence agencies. He stayed in contact with DRDO staff and scientists and was exposed to sensitive technical information related to missile launches,” reported Chandra Sekhar Monanty, a sub-inspector (SI) of police, who was assigned to keep watch on the accused by Balasore district police.

As per the FIR, Mr. Dey used to get advance information relating to such testing of missiles and share the classified defence information with one foreign agent who appears to be from Pakistan.

“The accused captured and sent photographs of prohibited areas and also communicated sensitive defence information to the foreign agent through Internet. In return, Mr. Dey was receiving monetary benefits and had sexual conversations and exchanged sexual photos and videos with the above Pakistani agent,” it is alleged. The man was under surveillance for the past one year.

“He has been arrested for passing sensitive information about ITR activities in exchange for obscene videos. We have intensified our investigation by interrogating a few more officials of ITR,” said Himansu Lal, Inspector-General of Police (Eastern Range).

Balasore Superintendent of Police Sagarika Nath said, “We are 100% confident that sensitive information in form of visual images and communication has been transmitted.”

Initial investigation traced the IP address of the woman handler to Rawalpindi.

In the written complaint, the SI said the leakage or sharing of such secret defence information to the Pakistani agent might cause serious harm to national security, as well as sovereignty and integrity of India.

Mr. Dey has been booked under Section 3,4 and 5 of Official Secret Acts 1923, 34, 120-A and 120-B of IPC. After arrest, he was produced in court.