Authorities probing the spy ring at the National Security Council Secretariat have taken former Naval Commander Mukesh Saini, who earlier headed a key cell in the prestigious organisation, into custody for questioning about his alleged links with a US diplomat.
Though there was no immediate confirmation about whether Saini had been formally arrested, informed sources said he was picked up from his residence on the intervening night of July three and four and subjected to intense grilling by the Delhi Police and Intelligence Bureau sleuths handling the case.
Saini headed the National Information Security Coordination Cell before joining a US-based software company. When contacted, Joint Commissioner Karnail Singh of Delhi Police's Special Cell refused to either confirm or deny that Saini had been arrested. The Cabinet Secretariat lodged an FIR with the Special Cell but has so far kept the police out of the loop after the matter was initially leaked to the media.
"The case is of a sensitive nature and I am not authorised to speak on the issues of NSCS," Singh said.
His comments came close on the heels of a warning from the office of National Security Advisor M K Narayanan asking Delhi Police Commissioner K K Paul and Singh to refrain from speaking to anyone about the case. Security agencies have also issued a Letter of Cancellation and a look-out notice at all major airports against Research and Analysis Wing Director Brig (retired) Ujjwal Dasgupta to prevent him from fleeing the country. An LoC was earlier issued against Saini.
The sources said Saini was handed over to the security agencies by immigration authorities in the middle of last month when he returned from abroad. Though there was no written official communication on Sainia at that point, the sources said immigration authorities detained him at the airport and handed him over to a special team of officers from IB and RAW.
Saini, meanwhile, has been moved from Special Cell's office in Lodhi Road to an unknown destination, the sources said. The sources said Saini had immediately joined the US- based company after quitting and this contravened government regulations. The police earlier arrested S S Paul, a computer analyst with the NSCS, for allegedly leaking secret data to US diplomat Rossane Minchew, a third secretary in the US mission here who left the country after the spy scandal came to light.
While senior officials were tightlipped about the matter, sources said preliminary inquiries indicated that no operational details were leaked from the NSCS as intelligence set-ups kept the organisation out of the operational loop.
Data related to the government's future policies is believed to have been compromised by the leak and could prove detrimental to the country's foreign policies. After senior RAW official Rabinder Singh's defection, which left the external spy agency in an embarassing position, the government handed over counter-intelligence operations entirely to the IB.