Koraput: Two officials of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) at Sunabeda in this district were reportedly picked up by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials Saturday, on alleged charge of leaking classified data of the Centre-owned agency. It is suspected that they leaked the information after allegedly being honey-trapped. The incident came to the fore during a raid by CBI sleuths from Nasik at HAL’s Sunabeda unit.
According to sources in the know of the development, the accused include a senior official of the aerospace and defence establishment. A laptop and hard disk were reportedly seized from their possession. The two have been taken to an undisclosed location where they are being interrogated. The development has spread panic among HAL employees.
However, Sunabeda HAL’s deputy general manager (DGM) Bhawani Shankar Shah said this is a rumour and nothing of this sort has happened. Reports said that HAL is currently involved in designing and manufacturing fighter jets, helicopters, jet engines and marine gas turbine engines, avionics, software development, spares supply, overhauling, and upgrading of Indian military aircraft.
Notably, September 15, 2021, a special squad of the Balasore Police led by the Eastern Range IG picked up five contractual employees at Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) from the main gate of its integrated test range (ITR) for questioning over espionage charges. Out of them, four accused were working at the launch pad-3 of ITR, Chandipur.
The intelligence reports then stated that the accused were honey-trapped and receiving international calls mostly from Pakistan-Rajasthan border areas and they had passed secret information to foreign agents. The woman had honey-trapped them after promising to marry two of the accused and assured another to visit his Chandipur residence. After befriending one of the accused, the Pakistani woman had expressed her interest to visit the DRDO’s ITR for which she had sought more information. The accused was sharing vital information regarding defence installation with the woman via Whatsapp, informed police. The arrested contractual employees included two AC operators, one diesel generator operator, and one gatekeeper besides the permanent staff, a driver of the ITR Director.
