Sacked IAF officer arrested for spying for ISI, sent to four days police custody

New Delhi ADelhi court on Tuesday remanded tofour days police custody adismissed Air Force officialwho allegedly shared secret information with intelligenceoperatives suspected to be backed by Pakistans ISI afterbeing honeytrapped into an espionage racket who was arrested from Bhatinda in Punjab by Delhi PoliceThe accused identified as Ranjith KK was a leadingaircraft man with the Indian Air Force posted at Bhatinda Hewas dismissed recently and later arrested after a combinedoperation by Delhi Polices Crime Branch MilitaryIntelligence and Air Force Liaisoning Unit LU JointCommissioner of Police Crime Ravindra Yadav said todayDismissed Air Force official Ranjith C who has been arrested for allegedly sharing secret documents with intelligence operatives backed by Pakistanrsquos ISI at the Special Cell of the Delhi Police in New Delhi on Tuesday PicPTIRanjith a native of Malappuram district in Kerala hadjoined the Indian Air Force in 2010 He has been booked underprovisions of the Official Secrets Act said policeWith his arrest the police have come across ahoneytrapping module backed by intelligence agents fromacross the border which creates fictitious accounts cyberentities in popular social networking sites pretending to bewomen befriend defence personnel and officials from securityforces and allegedly lure them into espionage a seniorpolice official said In the concerned case Ranjith was deceived by a cyberentity by the name Damini McNaught who pretended to be theexecutive of a UKbased media firm and claimed that sherequired Air Forcerelated information for an article in theirnews magazine from Ranjith in exchange for pecuniary benefitssaid the officialRanjith allegedly shared Air Forcerelated informationmostly pertaining to a recent exercise movements of aircraftand deployment of various units in exchange for moneytransferred to his bank account Additional Commissioner ofPolice Crime Alok Kumar saidRanjith had also received a few Voice Over InternetProtocolbased calls on his mobile number during which afemale with British accent introduced herself as DaminiMcNaught and even interviewed him once She later assigned himthe task of getting more information Kumar saidRanjith was arrested yesterday and brought to Delhi ontransit remand and produced before a court here todayRanjith allegedly shared secret information also throughemails and internetbased text messaging services Thedocuments he had shared now have to be analysed to evaluatethe actual damage and potential threat to national securitysaid an official privy to the investigationPolice are trying to crack open the honeytrapping moduleand ascertain the identities of more security personnelassociated with it the official addedRanjiths arrest came close on the heels of the crackingof an ISIbacked espionage racket by the Crime Branch inconnection with which five persons including a serving and aformer army personnel and a serving BSF personnel werearrestedHowever the police have not yet been able to establishany link between Ranjith and the other racket headed byone Kafaitullah Khan which was even found to have sources inthe Pakistan High Commission here said the officialWhile Khan was intercepted in Delhi while he wastravelling from Jammu to Bhopal three others were arrestedfrom Rajouri district in Jammu and Kashmir and one fromSiliguri in West BengalThese arrests were again closely preceded by those of somealleged ISI operatives in Kolkata and MeerutMeanwhile sources said it was in September when Ranjithcame in touch with the woman on Facebook while he wasadmitted to a military hospital for treatmentAs per the investigation the lady first made contactwith him on Facebook and he reciprocated since he was inhospital and had a lot of free time the sources saidHe came under the scanner of the Air Force intelligencewing due to his unusual activityRanjith was put under scanner and it was found that hehad been also meeting unusual people The sources refused toshare details beyond this but added that he had sharedsensitive details of a base from where drones and AirborneEarly Warning and Control Systems AEWampCS are operatedAir Force Station Bhisiana Bhatinda where he servedis the first upgraded air base under a Rs 2500 croreprogrammme which will see modernisation of 30 defenceairfields across India allowing operations of both civilianand military aircraft even in poor weather conditionsHe was arrested by the IAF following sustainedsurveillance and court martial proceeding was initiatedagainst himFollowing this Ranjith was dismissed from service at 530PM last evening and handed over to the police