Army clerk held for trying to sell secret documents to ISI

New Delhi: A military intelligence unit of the Army is under the scanner after a soldier was caught in April allegedly trying to sell top secret operational information to Pakistan's spy agency ISI.

The Army headquarters is awaiting the completion of inquiry and full report which names a clerk level official.

The data recovered likely contains detailed operational plans, information on troop deployments and even conversations between top officers at Army Headquarters.

In a worrisome development, a soldier working as clerk under a powerful Military Intelligence (MI) unit of the Army has been held for allegedly attempting to pass on highly confidential operational information to the ISI. 

As reported in The Indian Express, the soldier - identified as Shivdasan - was employed as a head clerk in the unit and was nabbed in April. 

As per reports, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) had laid a trap to nab the soldier. The entire operation involved a “double agent” and a relative of the soldier in Dubai. 

The DRI recovered a compact disc (CD), pen drive and highly classified documents which the soldier was trying to hand over to the Pakistani spy agency, the ISI. 

The Army has been left baffled by the kind of information that the clerk was trying to sell. 

Army sources say the data, which is being analysed, likely contains detailed operational plans, information on troop deployments and even conversations between top officers at Army Headquarters. 

Shivdasan was employed in the Technical Support Division (TSD), which was constituted in the last two years and functions from within the Army Headquarters. 

Reports said the TSD, headed by Colonel Honey Bakshi, has access to privileged information. It had made headlines recently after being accused of illegal surveillance. The allegation was, however, refuted by former Army chief General VK Singh.