AHMEDABAD, July 8:
A contractual employee working for the Border Security Force (BSF) at Bhuj in Gujarat has been arrested for allegedly sharing sensitive information with a woman Pakistani intelligence agent, officials said today.
Nilesh Balia, the accused, has passed Std 12th and was working as a peon in the electrical department office of the Central Public Works Department at the BSF headquarters at Bhuj for the last five years, they said.
The state Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) which arrested him yestereday would be producing him before a court and seek his custody, said a senior official.
Balia came in contact with the Pakistani agent sometime in January 2023, and shared several sensitive documents regarding electrification work in the under-construction and existing BSF buildings and also some documents related to civil departments with her, said Sunil Joshi, Superintendent of Police, ATS.
The woman contacted the accused through WhatsApp. She ‘honey-trapped’ him and persuaded him to share sensitive information for money, Joshi told reporters.
The agent identified herself as ‘Aditi Tiwari’ and claimed to be working in a private firm. She needed the information for her job and he would be paid for it, she told Balia.
As part of the “love affair,” the accused, who told the woman that he was a computer operator, shared sensitive information with her while accepting money for it, the SP said.
He was allegedly paid a total of Rs 28,800 through UPI transactions. The ATS will analyse his phone and bank accounts and probe who else he had been in contact with, the official said. After getting a tip-off about his activities, the ATS kept him under watch and analysed his phone records and bank accounts before calling him in for questioning.
Balia was booked under Indian Penal Code Sections 121-A (conspiracy to commit offences punishable by Section 121 related to waging war against the Government of India), 123 (concealing with intent to facilitate design to wage war) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) besides the Official Secrets Act. (PTI)
Follow our WhatsApp channel