Warship Photos Do Not Reveal Everything, Says Navy

Kolkata: Though expressing concern over a suspected ISI agent working in the Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Limited undetected, the Navy today said photographs of a warship did not reveal everything.

"It is a matter of concern that someone enters the GRSE facility where he should not have entered and that too at an important place where ships are made," Commodore Ravi Ahluwalia, naval-officer-in-charge of West Bengal, told reporters.

He said a system must be put in place to prevent the recurrence of such incidents in future.

Irshad Ansari, who was arrested by the Special Task Force of the Kolkata Police on Sunday, was a contractual labourer at the GRSE.

When asked to comment on reports that Mr Ansari had shared photographs of warships being built in the shipyard to Pakistan, the naval officer said that such photographs were not sensitive data and they were already available on the Internet.

"The photos do not reveal all information about the equipment we have in place. Even GRSE doesn't know technical details of it. You just cannot understand everything by taking a photograph," Commodore Ahluwalia said.

On whether there has been procedural lapses at the GRSE in maintaining adequate security, he replied in the negative.

"But more needs to be done," he said, adding, the defence public sector undertaking had already placed a request for a Central Industrial Security Force cover.

"Ensuring police verification of employees is another measure being taken up," he said.

One of the leading shipyards in India, the GRSE is at present building 15 ships, including anti-submarine warfare corvettes and stealth frigates for the Indian Navy. The mini navratna company had also exported a warship last year to Mauritius.

To enhance surveillance capabilities once the Sagar Island deep water port is ready in the next few years, the Navy is also planning to start a full-fledged coast battery at the island, the official said.