Hyderabad DRDL contractual employee shares confidential info with ISI handler; arrested

A contractual employee of the Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL) in Hyderabad was arrested on Friday for allegedly leaking highly secured and confidential information about the DRDL-RCI Complex to a suspected ISI female handler in Pakistan, the Rachakonda Police said on Friday.

The accused, identified as Dukka Mallikarjuna Reddy (29) alias Arjun Bittu was arrested from Triveni Nagar, Balapur, Hyderabad during a joint operation by the Special Operations Team, LB Nagar Zone, Rachakonda, and Balapur police.

"On June 17, 2022, on credible information, the Sleuths of Special Operations Team, LB Nagar Zone, Rachakonda in a joint operation with Balapur police, arrested the contractual employee of Defence Research & Development Laboratory (DRDL) who has shared the highly secured and confidential information of DRDL-RCI Complex through social media to a suspected ISI female handler which is prone to create harm to National Integrity and Security," the police statement reads.

The suspect had posted about his work with DRDL on his Facebook account, and in March 2020, he was contacted by a woman claiming to be Natasha Rao. She introduced herself as an employee of the UK Defence Journal, whose father worked in the Indian Air Force before shifting to the UK.

DRDL-RCI Complex project leak

During the conversations with Natasha Rao alias Simran Chopra alias Omisha Addie, the DRDL employee shared confidential information and also his bank account details. He was in contact with her till December last year.

A case has been registered under sections 409 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sections 3 (1) (C), 5 (3), 5 (1) (A) of Official Secret Act-1923 at Balapur Police Station of Rachakonda Police Commissionerate. The police have also seized two mobile phones, a SIM card, and a laptop from Reddy.

According to the police, the suspect was born and brought up at Naval Armament Depot (NAD) Quarters, Visakhapatnam, and his father worked as a Chargeman Civilian in NAD and retired in 2014. He completed his B.Tech (Mechanical) from Visakhapatnam and later did his MBA (Marketing) from Hyderabad in 2020.

He joined the Patancheru branch of a Bengaluru-headquartered company and worked on a project from DRDL till January 2020. After the project, he directly approached DRDL authorities and got enrolled as a contract employee for a project with RCI Balapur.

The arrests were made under the supervision of Rachakonda Police Commissioner Mahesh M Bhagwat, Additional Commissioner of Police G Sudheer Babu, LB Nagar DCP Sunpreeth Singh, DCP (SOT) K Muralidhar and Deputy Commissioner of Police, Special Operations Team, Rachakonda.

(With inputs from agency)