In a fresh development in the alleged espionage case involving the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Chandipur in Balasore district, investigators have learnt that the elusive female operative in the spy ring, who is said to have honey trapped five employees of the DRDO for obtaining crucial intelligence about the high security defence installation, had managed to hack the mobile phone of one arrested accused for a protracted eight month period.
As per the disclosures made by the Crime Branch, which is investigating the sensational case, the mysterious female operative, suspected to be a Pakistani spy, had hacked the mobile phone of one of the five accused for eight months and kept tab on his activities. She managed to steal vital information about the organization in the process, Crime Branch sources said on Monday.
It has also been revealed that some of the accused purchased multiple SIM cards to speak to the woman conduit over phone and she used to keep surveillance on the movement of the DRDO Director through Sachin Kumar Chatta, one of the accused in the case.
It is pertinent to mention here that five contractual employees at the DRDO, Chandipur in Odisha's Balasore district were arrested hours after they were picked up for questioning on charges of leaking sensitive information to foreign agents on September 14. Subsequently, Chatta, who worked as a driver to the DRDO director was also rounded up in the case.
The SDJM court in Balasore had remanded all five accused to the State Crime Branch custody. The five contractual employees were identified as-- Basanta Behera (52) of Jhampura, Hemant Kumar Mistri (52) of Buanla, Tapas Ranjan Nayak (41) of Palasia and Sk Musafir (32) of Srikona.
Chatta belongs to Meerut in Uttar Pradesh.
The contractual employees used to work at Launch Pad-3 of the Integrated Test Range (ITR), Chandipur.