Army officer lured into honey trap confesses to passing secrets

The junior Army officer arrested in Hyderabad on Wednesday for espionage has confessed to having passed on critical information about 96 field regiments and ten medium regiments

Mohammed Siddique / Rediff.com reports

Subedar Naik Patan Kumar, the Junior Commissioned Officer in the artillery regiment who was arrested on Wednesday in Hyderabad for alleged espionage, has reportedly confessed to his crime.

Poddar, who was arrested following an alert by the intelligence agencies, has admitted that he was passing crucial information to a girl named Anushka Agarwal since 2013.

The JCO, who was posted at 151 MC/MF detachments at Secunderabad, said he had come in contact with the girl through social networking site Facebook and developed an intimate contact via e-mail and phone.

Police believes that Anushka Agarwal was a fake name and that either the woman was a Pakistani or was being used by Pakistan’s intelligence agency Inter Services Intelligence to lure Poddar and gather information from him.

Investigation has revealed that Anushka’s Facebook page was created from Jaipur, Rajasthan.

In his confession statement, Poddar, who hails from West Bengal, said that Anushka wanted him to work for her father’s voluntary organization and was paid Rs 74,000 in 7 instalments.

But police claimed that she deposited Rs 10 lakh into his account and that Rs 3 lakh had been seized from Poddar’s account.

The police have also seized his computer, laptop and pen drive.

Police say the lady had said some nude photos to Poddar to enamour him; he was so carried away that used to call her “Nargis”.

Poddar confessed that he passed on information about 96 field regiments and ten medium regiments.  

Security around the defence establishments in Chennai and Telangana have been bolstered on the eve of Independence Day in view of the revelation.

The defence authorities have also changed the location of key defence units.

According to police sources, Anushka had asked Poddar for photographs and other details of the workshops in Hyderabad where missiles and other defence systems were being developed.

However, it was not clear whether he was able to send them to her. 

Poddar revealed that he sent details of 40 officers of key departments and 12 Brigadiers in different parts of the country.

Anushka had promised Poddar to take him to London if he provided crucial information about the Indian Army, sources said. 

He also passed on information about the deployments on western borders over phone, sources said.  

The police was keeping the army higher-ups informed about the progress in the investigations. Many other security and intelligence agencies have also joined the probe in view of the grim implications of Poddar’s activities.