Jaipur: An employee of the Railway Mail Service, who was arrested eight days back by the intelligence agencies on charges of espionage, has now been suspended from his job.
Bharat Bawri, an MTS employee of the Jaipur-based Railway Mail Service, was arrested September 10. He was honey-trapped by a female agent of the Pakistani secret service and used to send her important secret documents of the Indian Army via WhatsApp.
Bawri used to send the female Pakistani agent photographs of confidential documents of strategic importance to the Indian Army through WhatsApp, after which Military Intelligence Southern Command and state intelligence took joint action and arrested him. During interrogation by the agencies at the Joint Inquiry Centre Jaipur, he said that that he is originally from village Khedapa in Jodhpur district and was posted in the Jaipur office of Railway Mail Service following an MTS examination three years ago. Here he used to do the work of sorting incoming mail.
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About four-five months ago, a message from the woman came on his mobile Facebook messenger. For a few days, both started talking over WhatsApp through voice and video calls. The woman said that she was preparing for MBBS after completing a nursing course in Port Blair and on the pretext of transfer of one of her relatives to an army unit located in Jaipur, she gradually started asking for photos of army-related mail. Later, the Pakistani female agent started sending her photos on the pretext of meeting the accused in Jaipur and and staying with him.
After being completely honey-trapped, Bawri started opening the envelopes of confidential army-related mail, took photographs and sent these to the woman via WhatsApp. On confirmation of these facts through actual investigation of the accused's phone, a case has been registered against him under the Official Secrets Act, 1923.
During interrogation, the accused also said that on the request of the Pakistani female agent, he shared with her a SIM card of a mobile number in his own name and a WhatsApp OTP so that she could target other people and army personnel too.
