*Hyderabad police arrest honey-trapped DRDL employee for leaking confidential Missile development information to Pakistan’s ISI operative through social media*
*REPORT BY SAHIL PATHAN*
A contractual employee of the Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL) in Hyderabad has been arrested for passing confidential defence information on India’s missile development to an alleged ISI operative in Pakistan through social media. The 29-year-old accused, identified as Dukka Mallikarjuna Reddy alias Arjun Bittu was arrested from his residence in Triveni Nagar, Balapur, Hyderabad during a joint operation by the Special Operations Team, LB Nagar Zone, Rachakonda, and Balapur police on June 17, Friday.The arrest was made under the supervision of Rachakonda Police Commissioner Mahesh M Bhagwat, Additional Commissioner of Police G Sudheer Babu, LB Nagar DCP Sunpreeth Singh, DCP (SOT) K Muralidhar and Deputy Commissioner of Police, Special Operations Team, Rachakonda.
“On June 17, 2022, on credible information, the Sleuths of Special Operations Team, LB Nagar Zone, Rachakonda in a joint operation with Balapur Police, arrested the contractual employee of Defence Research & Development Laboratory (DRDL) who has shared the highly secured and confidential information of DRDL-RCI Complex through social media to a suspected ISI female handler which is prone to create harm to national integrity and security,” a statement issued by the police,Reddy has been booked under sections 409 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sections 3 (1) (C), 5 (3), 5 (1) (A) of Official Secret Act-1923 at Balapur Police Station of Rachakonda Police Commissionerate. His two mobile phones, a SIM card, and a laptop have also been seized by the authorities.
According to reports, Reddy was working on a classified advanced naval system programme at the defence lab’s RCI complex in Balapur, Hyderabad. He updated his job status with DRDL on Facebook in March 2018. Two years later, in March 2020, he was contacted by a Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) handler using the name Natasha Rao. She introduced herself as a UK Defence Journal employee whose father served in the Indian Air Force before relocating to the United Kingdom.
Natasha Rao alias Simran Chopra alias Omisha Addie befriended Reddy on social media and then honey-trapped him under the pretext of love and marriage, and asked him to leak sensitive information about the DRDL-RCI Complex.According to reports, Reddy kept transferring confidential defence details to the ISI handler until December last year, but he became suspicious when Natasha changed her Facebook profile name to Simran Chopra and stopped chatting with him. During the investigation, the police found that Natasha had also sought the bank account details of Reddy, but they are yet to confirm if she transferred money from the account or not.
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