HAL employee arrested for supplying aircraft details to ISI; FIR registered under Official Secrets Act

-

Mumbai: A Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) employee has been arrested for supplying Indian fighter aircraft details to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, Maharashtra police said on Friday.

Police said 41-year-old Deepak Shirsat was working as an assistant supervisor at HAL and was "honey trapped" by a Pakistani national posing as a woman on social media.

The Nashik unit of the state Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) had received reliable intelligence about the man, who was in constant touch with ISI, a police statement said.

The man was supplying the secret information about Indian fighter aircraft and their sensitive details, along with the information related to HAL's aircraft manufacturing unit at Ojhar near Nashik, airbase and prohibited area inside the manufacturing unit, the statement said.

An offence under the Official Secrets Act has been registered against Shirsat, an official said, adding Nashik ATS unit arrested him from his house in Nashik.

Three mobile handsets along with five SIM cards and two memory cards have been seized from him, he said. The phones and SIM cards were sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory for examination, he added.

The accused was produced before court on Friday, and was remanded in ATS custody for 10 days, he said.

Investigation so far has revealed that Shirsat was honey trapped by a Pakistani national, probably an ISI handler, who chatted with him posing as a woman, ATS DCP Vinay Rathod told PTI.

The Pakistani national told Shirsat that he likes aircraft, after which the HAL employee started sharing sensitive information about India's fighter aircraft with him on WhatsApp and other social media platforms, Rathod said.

HAL's Aircraft Division Nashik, established in 1964 for licence manufacture of MiG-21FL aircraft and K-13 missiles, is located at Ojhar, 24 km from Nashik and around 200 km from Mumbai.

The division has also manufactured other MiG variants like MiG-21M, MiG-21 BIS, MiG-27 M and the state-of-the-art Su-30 MKI fighter jet. The division also carries out overhaul of the MiG series aircraft and Repair and Overhaul (ROH) of Su-30 MKI aircraft.



from Firstpost India Latest News https://ift.tt/33J5iba
Press Trust of India

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Both COVID-19 vaccine doses needed for good protection against B16172 variant

-
It’s been a concerning few weeks in the UK, with the B16172 variant first taking hold and then spreading to become dominant. This more infectious form of the virus, initially identified in India, is what we’re now going to have to live with – unless it is out-competed by another variant in the future. Worryingly, experts had predicted that B16172 might be able to escape some of the effects of vaccines, which if true would threaten to derail the UK’s plans to finish lifting restrictions from the end of June. However, Public Health England (PHE) has looked at the ability of various variants to evade immunity and says that the UK’s vaccines remain effective against the variants circulating, including B16172. On the surface, this looks like good news. But delve a bit deeper, and things get more complicated, says Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia. PHE’s research found a little drop-off in protection against B16172 among people who were fully vaccinated.
Read more

New coronavirus variant emerge in India: How should our COVID response change?

-
Image
After genome sequencing of over 10,000 COVID-19 cases in India, researchers have discovered a new variant with two new mutations which may be better at evading the immune system. In 15-20 percent of samples from the Indian state of Maharashtra (the state accounting for 62 percent of cases in the country) a new, double mutation in key areas of the virus has been detected. These are now known as the E484Q and L452R mutations. What makes the variant different? Both these mutations are concerning because they are located in a key portion of the virus – the spike protein – that it uses to penetrate human cells. Spike proteins attach via a “receptor binding domain”, meaning the virus can attach to receptors in our cells. These new mutations include changes to the spike protein that make it a “better fit” for human cells. This means the virus can gain entry more easily and multiply faster. Given what we have seen with other similar mutations , it might also make it harder for our immu
Read more

120 flights delayed, 30 trains running late; Delhi fog & cold wave continue to give shiver to travellers

-
Arrival and departure of 120 flights, both domestic and international, to Delhi airport were affected due to dense fog and cold wave conditions on Wednesday, according to Delhi Airport FIDS (Flight Information Display System). As per the Delhi Airport FIDS, a total of 53 flights, including 21 domestic arrivals, 16 domestic departures, 13 international departures and three international arrivals scheduled are cancelled and not operating due to fog and other operational reasons from and to Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport in the national capital on 17 January. #WATCH | Delhi: Several flight operations delayed at IGI airport due to low visibility amid fog. pic.twitter.com/hG1DUKllEt — ANI (@ANI) January 17, 2024 Visuals from the Delhi airport showed passengers waiting outside, checking update of their scheduled flights. There were also some people waiting for flight of their families, friends and loved ones to arrive, which got delayed due to fog. #WATCH | Delhi | Pas
Read more