New Delhi:
A personnel of the Indian Army, who was working as an Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) module and passing on sensitive information inimical to the country's security to Pakistan, has been sentenced to three years in jail by a Delhi court.
"The accused is convicted under section 120-B of the IPC for entering into criminal conspiracy with one Pramod who was working as an ISI agent to indulge in espionage activities to transmit sensitive and secret information regarding Indian Army to the enemy country (Pakistan)," District Judge O P Gupta said, holding Army Signal Man Ritesh Kumar Vishwakarma, guilty of indulging in espionage activities.
The court convicted him under various other sections of the IPC and the Official Secret Act.
A native of Bihar and posted in Army's signal unit at Leh in Jammu and Kashmir, Ritesh was arrested by Delhi Police's Special Cell sleuths at Palam airport on October 20, 2006.
The sleuths had received a tip-off that the 28-year-old signal man would be reaching Delhi's Palam airport from Leh by Jet Airways at about 9: 15 AM on October 20, 2006 and would be carrying some sensitive, secret, defence-related documents for passing the same to ISI agents.
Ritesh was caught with documents including several hand-written notes related to the Army, diagrams about security plans, pen drive, camera and camera films.
Prosecution said the police had got the tip-off that Ritesh was working with some ISI agents based in Kathmandu for the purpose prejudicial to the safety, security and interest of India.
"He had been unauthorisedly collecting and communicating to some ISI agent and some other foreign agents, information which was calculated to be directly or indirectly useful to the enemy country. Passing of the said information was likely to affect sovereignty, integrity and security of India," the probe agency said.
After his arrest, he was jointly interrogated by the Indian Army, Delhi Police and Intelligence Bureau personnel. The court noted that had the recovered documents fallen into enemy hands, it could have affected the security of the State.
He remained in custody from October 10, 2006, to May, 29, 2009 and then again from January 21, 2011, till the date of pronouncement of the judgement. The court, while sentencing Ritesh to three years in jail, also set off his sentence against the period of his detention.