Press Trust Of India
New Delhi, Feb 23: Delhi Police Monday busted another module allegedly involved in leaking confidential documents from coal and power ministries with the arrest of an energy consultant and detention of at least six more in the corporate espionage case.
More arrests are likely soon as search and raids were continuing in Delhi and NCR in this connection. Police were also looking into the financial transactions of the people arrested so far in the case to understand the money trail and identify the individuals or companies who benefited in the case, sources said.
The Crime Branch has registered a new FIR under various sections of IPC relating to trespass, criminal conspiracy, forgery and fraud in this case as this module operated independent of the one involved in the petroleum ministry racket in which 12 people have been arrested so far.
During the investigation of the first case and questioning of energy consultants Santanu Saikia and Prayas Jain, the name of Lokesh Sharma (33) came up as another “active player” in the game.
“It was revealed that one Lokesh Sharma is involved in procuring/stealing official/secret documents from ministry of coal, Shastri Bhawan and ministry of power, Shram Shakti Bhawan, Rafi Marg, Delhi with the help of his associates, in connivance of some staff of these ministries,” joint commissioner of police (crime) Ravindra Yadav told the media.
Accordingly, a raid was conducted after mounting surveillance over the activities of Lokesh Sharma, a resident of Uttam Nagar in West Delhi and he was nabbed from Dwarka in southwest Delhi along with two forged identity cards of the ministries of coal and power and copies of various official/secret documents.
As it came to fore that he procured documents from ministry officials, police picked up three people from the coal ministry and one from the power ministry in this connection for questioning. Three persons have also been detained for questioning who have links to the first module, sources said.
Lokesh’s father had at some point of time worked as a driver in a ministry and because of this he was aware of the loopholes which he exploited for his advantage.
According to Yadav, Lokesh was an “active player” in the whole racket. He was an employee of energy consultancy firm called Infraline based in Noida. He used to procure documents from the ministry of coal, power and petroleum with the help of staff posted in these Ministries.
