Honey-trapped jawan held for sharing key info with Pak spy

Jaipur/New Delhi: The Rajasthan police arrested an Army jawan posted in Jaisalmer district of the state after it was found that he was allegedly honey trapped by a Pakistani-based ISI operative. The jawan is accused of passing crucial information to the Pakistani agent who he met on Facebook.

The jawan was in touch with the suspected ISI spy who was using the profile name of ‘Anika Chopra’ on Facebook. It all began with texting ‘hello and hi’ between Army jawan Somvir Singh and the Pakistani agent who introduced herself as a young student from Jammu.

Anika Chopra claims to be an Army Captain of the Military Nursing Corps. In her profile picture, she is seen wearing a green saree and a pretty smile. That smile has now landed 50 jawans under the scanner of intelligence agencies.

It was clear to both military intelligence and to Rajasthan ATS that Anika Chopra was a Pakistani agent who had honey-trapped not just Singh, who is married, but other soldiers as well. But Singh claims he did not know of Chopra’s antecedents till the blackmail began.

The sequence of events is straight out of the honey-trapping rulebook of Pakistani intelligence, one that has the Indian Army increasingly worried. Anika Chopra used to send intimate messages to lure the soldier into sharing confidential information about the Army, including pictures of tanks, armoured vehicles, weapons, and location of army companies.

This was revealed by the investigating team after the arrest was made. His arrest was made possible only after the army intelligence found his activities increasingly suspicious. “Army is providing all assistance to the civilian authorities in the investigation related to the jawan who was arrested,” Defence PRO Colonel Sambit Ghosh said.

The initial investigation indicated that the accused was not only involved in espionage activities, but he was also being paid for sharing strategic information. “We have clues that a few months ago, Sombir was paid Rs 5,000 for spying. And that money was transferred into the account of accused’s brother in order to evade suspicion.

Subsequently Sombir transferred money into his e-wallet,” an official part of the investigating team said, adding that the accused was effectively honey trapped and demanded a second round of money transfer.

The Army is now tracking multiple accounts of officers and jawans to probe if the Pakistani spy account was in touch with other personnel to get information from them, the agency reported.

In the recent past, a Group Captain of the Indian Air Force was apprehended by the counterintelligence units of the Army, Air Force and the Intelligence Bureau for sharing information about transport aircraft operations as he was posted in the air headquarters here.

A Brahmos employee was also caught where the Pakistani spy had used the same modus operandi to trap the official. Sources in the Army said the jawan was apprehended and interrogated by intelligence agencies for over four months after he was found to be in touch with Pakistani ISI operative on the social media platform.