A computer systems analyst in the National Security Council Secretariat, the nation’s top intelligence processing unit, is under arrest, his residence raided.

And now a Navy commander who headed the secretariat’s National Information Security Co-ordination Cell is being questioned in what is turning out to be an unprecedented security breach in the highest levels of the intelligence establishment. The breach, detected only a month ago, involves alleged leakage of sensitive information to foreign agents.

Given that the NSC secretariat is the repository of all intelligence inputs from all security agencies at the Centre, investigators from the Intelligence Bureau are still mapping the damage. Work computers of all top security agency officials in the Government and the military are under the scanner.

Sources said the breach could be widespread, covering RAW, the NSC secretariat and even sections in the Ministry of External Affairs.

In particular focus is the Indo-US Cyber Security Forum, a bilateral programme meant to ease information exchange, and its former coordinator from the Indian side: Mukesh Saini.

Saini, a Navy commander, was until recently the Information Security Specialist in the NSC secretariat and coordinator of the Indo-US forum. Last week, he was subject to intense questioning by IB officials in a plot involving alleged leakage of information to a woman who is a US national.

Saini now works for a leading US software firm in India. “I do not want to comment on a matter of national security which is currently under investigation,” Saini told The Sunday Express.

IB officials are also examining how Saini was allowed to quit to join a private software firm when he was a key member in charge of a sensitive cybersecurity initative. Government approval is needed for such a transition within two years of retirement. Saini is said to have denied any wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, Delhi Police have arrested NSC secretariat systems analyst S S Paul. Sources said that IB is investigating the alleged links between Saini and the US national whom he is said to have “introduced” to Paul at last year’s Indo-US Cyber Security Forum meeting in Delhi.

Around the time Paul was picked up, the office of Brigadier Ujjwal Dasgupta, RAW’s Director for Computers and

Training was raided, as first reported by The Indian Express on June 17. Dasgupta, also involved in the Indo-US Cyber Security Forum, has been on extension in RAW and has now been told that his services are not required. He is also under watch.

Saini’s unit reports to the National Information Board headed by National Security Advisor M K Narayanan. Narayanan, when contacted today, said: “I am not familiar with the details of the case.”

It was Narayanan who had started an inquiry into the alleged spying case of RAW’s Joint Director Rabinder Singh. Singh, despite being under watch, fled the country in May 2004 and is now believed to be in the US.

Source of the breach & possible damage

Investigators are zeroing in on the NSC secretariat as one of the key nodes in the breach. What’s the NSC secretariat?

• Set up post-Kargil following the recommendations of a Group of Ministers, it supports the National Security Advisor.

• Collates inputs sent by IB, RAW, MEA, DIA (Defence Intelligence Agency) and Military Intelligence.

• Prepares strategic forecast for all national security issues, including nuclear issues.

• Houses the Joint Intelligence Council.

• Sample of information it deals with: nuclear programme, security assessment on neighbouring China, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh; Kashmir; domestic intelligence.