
Delhi police today chargesheeted two persons who were arrested for leaking sensitive data from National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS), first reported by The Indian Express.
The third accused in the case, Ujjwal Dasgupta, a former senior Research & Analysis Wing official, has not been chargesheeted along with the duo. Police told the court that the investigations are still on against him and a supplementary chargesheet is likely to follow. The two chargesheeted today are Shib Shankar Paul, who was employed as a senior computer analyst with NSCS, and Mukesh Saini, a former navy commander who was co-ordinator of the Indo-US Cyber Security Forum. They have been charged under the Official Secrets Act, criminal conspiracy, and destruction of evidence.
Paul was arrested on June 11 this year while Saini was arrested on July 1.
The chargesheet reveals in detail Paul and Saini’s involvement in the breach. According to the chargesheet filed in the court of chief metropolitan magistrate, the breach started in the month of August 2005 when Rosanna Minchew, alleged to be a US spy, was first introduced by Howard Madnick, coordinator of Indo-US Cyber Security Forum to Mukesh Saini. Madnick told Saini that he was leaving India and the forum would now be headed by Minchew. Subsequently, Minchew started interacting with Paul.
The chargesheet also reveals that Paul had replaced an IBM laptop from the high security NSCS office at Sardar Patel Bhavan with an old one, and handed it over to Minchew. He’d also bought her a cellphone on his identity papers.
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