Indian Navy’s Honey Trap case investigated by Andhra Pradesh Police has now deepen and 13 people now arrested including 11 Navy personnel have been arrested so far for allegedly sending sensitive information related to the Navy to the spies of enemy country with the help of social media.
According to sources the scope of the investigation has been extended to the social media profiles of other suspected navy personnel, who are suspected to be in contact with people associated with Pakistani intelligence agencies.
It is being told that the posting of the navy personnel who have been arrested so far were at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, Karwar in Karnataka and Mumbai base in Maharashtra.
Significantly, the investigation into the case that shook the Indian Navy began with seven Navy personnel in a joint operation of Andhra Pradesh Police, Naval Intelligence and Central Intelligence Agencies.
The seven Indian Navy personnel are reportedly involved in espionage. It is alleged that after being trapped in the Honey Trap, They leaked sensitive information related to the Indian Navy.
After the matter came to light in December, the Navy imposed a strict ban on use of smartphones and social sites like Facebook for its personnel.
On December 20, seven Naval personnel three from Visakhapattanam based Eastern Naval Command, three from Mumbai Based Western Naval Command and one from Karwar the base of Karnataka were arrested. They were allegedly involved in a spy ring with links to Pakistan.
All these men had joined service post-2015. The three accused arrested from ENC Visakhapattanam are
Sunny Kumar (Alwar, RJ),
SK Das (Gopalpur, Odisha) and S Kumar Sarma (UP).
Others arrested accused Ashok Kumar (Jhunjhun, RJ),
Ashok Kumar (Jodhpur, RJ),
V Kumar (Alwar, RJ) and Somanath (Pune, MH) were arrested from Karwar Command of Karnataka while one Ashok Kumar Singh was posted at Submarine based at Mumbai and others accused arrested includes Pankaj Iyer , Vedram , Rinku tiyagi , Sanjay Rawat , Devsharan Gupta , Deepak Trivedi ,
It is alleged that the arrested personnel, all junior ranks, were ‘honey trapped’ through Facebook and online dating sites.
They were allegedly paid by Pakistani Intelligence agency ISI for sensitive information about Indian Naval ships and submarines, reports said.
Naval sources also said that due to the sudden ban on the use of smart phones, it has become difficult for the navy personnel to contact their relatives and perform other digital tasks.
In view of these problems, the Navy has now allowed the use of old technology mobile phones with 2G connectivity. Experts feel that this phone is of limited use and can also be intercepted.
These restrictions are just being implemented strictly. After the Honey Trap case came to light, the Ministry of Home Affairs submitted its investigation to the National Investigation Agency
The Intelligence Department of Andhra Pradesh Police had launched ‘Operation Dolphin’ across the country with the help of central intelligence agencies . This racket has been exposed under this operation. The strings of this racket are connected to Pakistan.
