Ram Niwas Gaura held for sharing Army’s secret to Pakistan
AGENCIES/ JAIPUR
Security forces on Saturday arrested a man in Jaipur who was allegedly working as a spy for Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI. As per reports, Ram Niwas Gaura is an Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agent.
This is the third arrest related to espionage in October. Two Pakistan were arrested earlier this month, as per a Times Now report. Last week, a Pakistani spy was arrested in Rajasthan’s Barmer. Later he was questioned in Jaipur, as per Rajasthan Police ADG (Intelligence) officials.
It was reported in September this year that the MI Jaipur learnt about an “espionage agent” in Niwaru, who was passing military-related information to his handlers in Pakistan.
The individual was identified as Ramniwas Gaura, 28, a civil motor driver working with the MES.
It was learnt that Gaura was in contact with one Pakistan Intelligence Operator (PIO) namely Ekta alias Jasmeet Kour through Facebook and WhatsApp.
During his two years of contact with the PIO, he shared the information about units and formations at Niwaru and Jaipur as also information about various offices and personnel in these two places.
The case details were shared with the police headquarters in Jaipur, following which and a joint operation was planned to apprehend Gaura.
A joint team of Jaipur Police Intelligence and MI Jaipur was formed, and all the findings were analysed again.
Further details were acquired and conclusive evidence was gathered.
Gaura was eventually detained on Friday. During questioning, he reportedly confessed that he had received a friend request from the PIO’s Facebook profile, ‘Ekta’, in February/March 2020, and accepted it.
They soon became “very friendly”, shared their WhatsApp numbers with each other and started chatting, apart from interacting over audio/video calls.
The PIO used to use an Indian WhatsApp number and had claimed that she was working with the Principal Controller of Defence Account (PCDA), Shimla.
After the initial friendly chats, Ekta started asking Gaura about information of “military nature” which he readily shared. For monetary favours, he shared his account details with Ekta and in March 2020, demanded Rs 10,000.
Further details are being examined by the Jaipur Police Intelligence and MI. Other agencies have also joined the investigation following Gaura’s arrest.
Rajasthan Police Additional Director General (Intelligence) Umesh Mishra told the media that the team received a tip-off about Gaura passing secret information of the army to Pakistan for the last several days.Earlier this month, an employee of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), identified as Deepak Shirsat, was arrested on alleged charges of spying for Pakistan. He was supplying confidential and sensitive information about Indian fighter aircraft and the HAL’s manufacturing facilities in Nashik.
The secret information of the Indian Army was being sent by the accused through this account and money was also being demanded by him. In fact, he also shared the details of his bank account with the “Pakistani officer”.