The four contractual employees arrested on the charges of espionage at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in Odisha, were reportedly honey trapped.
According to sources, the accused were possibly in contact with a Pakistani woman and were being allegedly paid by her for providing secret inputs. The woman is suspected to be an ISI agent and lured the accused to leak secret information of DRDO.
The accused were provided specific SIM cards to communicate with the foreign agent. On the other hand, the fourth accused, whose identity was kept secret, has been confirmed as Hemanta Mistry, who was working as DG operator in DRDO’s Chandipur ITR.
Others, who were arrested in connection with the case, have been identified as Basanta Behera, Tapas Ranjan Nayak and Sheikh Musafir. All the accused were forwarded to Balasore SDJM Court today.
Earlier, in 2015, Ishwar Chandra Behera, a cameraman at Integrated Test Range (ITR) in Chandipur was arrested for spying for Pakistani intelligence agency ISI. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on February 11, 2021.