The Army of Thursday dismissed the reports of a Lieutenant Colonel posted at Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh falling prey to a honeytrap by Pakistani intelligence as "pure speculation". A senior officer of the Indian Army told ANI that the Lt Col would continue to perform his routine duties in unit as he was only questioned as part of an ongoing enquiry.
The statement came after the officer in question was picked up for questioning by a team from the Army Headquarters in Delhi. Even though Defence PRO, Allahabad, Wing Commander Arvind Sinha, who informed media about the development yesterday, did not disclose the details on investigations, media reports suggested that he was honey-trapped by ISI.
"Reports of detention of officer, 'honey trapping', money exchange at this stage are pure speculation and neither accurate nor substantiated. Details on the outcome of the enquiry will be intimated in due course as per progress," the senior Army official told ANI.
According to him, a preliminary enquiry was ordered on February 12 by the Indian Army to ascertain facts on suspected leakage of classified information from IT devices of the Lieutenant Colonel in Jabalpur. “It is yet to be established whether it has happened inadvertently or deliberately as reported,” said the senior Army official.
He added that digital evidence related to the case has been seized and sent for further forensic analysis.
The speculations of honey-trap were rife as the latest arrest came days after Group Captain Arun Marwah, posted at the IAF headquarters, was interrogated by the IAF's counter-intelligence wing on charges of espionage and subsequently handed over to the Delhi Police.
The Group Capt was allegedly leaking classified documents to a woman he had befriended on Facebook in December last year through WhatsApp, according to investigators.
