Balasore: Odisha police on Thursday arrested one more staff of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in connection with the espionage case which was busted on Tuesday. With this, the total number of accused arrested in the case so far has gone up to five. The accused identified as Sachin Kumar alis Chetta was working as a driver at DRDO’s Intermediate Test Range (ITR) in Chandipur of the Balasore district.
Earlier, police had apprehended four contractual employees working at Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) facility in Chandipur. The employees were arrested under the Official Secrets Act for allegedly passing on classified defence secrets to 'foreign agents.'
Read: Four arrested on charges of leaking DRDO data
Police, in an official statement, stated that four people were charged under Sections 120-B, 121-A, and 34 of Indian Penal Code, along with sections 3,4 and 5 of the Official Secrets Act for "committing offence of causing serious harm to the security, sovereignty and integrity of our nation and further interrogation of these four detainees and some others is going on to unearth more evidence in the case."
The police further stated that it had received credible inputs that some people were "wrongfully and willfully" passing on defence secrets to a third party, "appearing to be Pakistani agents." It added that the accused were getting "wrongful monetary benefits" in exchange.
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