The arrest of seven naval personnel and one hawala operator by the Andhra Pradesh Police and Central Intelligence Agencies on Friday has given rise to a number of speculative stories.
While there is no clarity on their identity, official rank or in which naval establishment they were working, sources say that two of them were operating from Eastern Naval Command and the others were from Western Naval Command, and could be located in Mumbai or Karwar. It is even not clear whether all of them were sailors or if there were any officers among them.
However, sources in the police say that it is just the tip of an iceberg and a few more people are being investigated and there could be the involvement of some officers. One thing is sure that they were under the intelligence scanner since last one year, and were honey-trapped and were using fake social media accounts to transmit the information.
According to sources, all the seven accused were interacting with some women on the other side, but who they were, it is not clear. “They could be just fictitious accounts, with pictures of attractive women or women in real, employed by some alleged ISI handler,” said a senior police officer from the intelligence wing.
Handler
It is learnt that the focus has now shifted on the handler, but in such cases, the handlers melt into thin air, after their sources are exposed.
In 2001, when a senior naval officer of ENC was arrested on charges of supplying sensitive information to some ISI handler, the handler was traced to Nepal.
In most cases, ISI handlers do not operate from Pakistan, but operate from countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Thailand or Sri Lanka, said a senior officer from Andhra Pradesh State Intelligence Bureau.
Sources in the police said all the seven arrested naval personnel were recruited in 2017. This indicates that if they are sailors, they must be in the lower cadre. And then the question is whether they would have access to sensitive information, as in Defence organisation, all sensitive information such as position of mobile naval assets and weapon system are only accessible to officers.
Senior intelligence officers say it has been the standard operating procedure of ISI to use handlers to target lower ranks for some basic information. Only further investigation will reveal the full details, an officer said.
