Daijiworld Media Network - Coimbatore

Coimbatore, Oct 4: A 31-year-old Indian Navy sailor has been arrested in Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore for allegedly leaking sensitive defence-related information to a Pakistani operative, officials said on Sunday.

The arrested sailor was identified as Pradeep Mukherjee, who was posted with the Eastern Naval Command in Visakhapatnam. He was attending a management development course at INS Agrani, a naval leadership training facility in Coimbatore, when he was arrested on Saturday.

Mukherjee, a native of West Bengal, joined the Indian Navy in 2014. According to officials, he was allegedly honey-trapped by a Pakistani female agent through social media. The two had reportedly been in contact for the past few months, during which Mukherjee allegedly shared sensitive information related to strategic naval assets, fleet movements and the operational framework of the Visakhapatnam naval base.

He was under the surveillance of the Counter Intelligence Cell of the Andhra Pradesh Police, a specialised unit tasked with countering cross-border espionage and terror threats. The unit had reportedly been tracking his digital activities.

Mukherjee's arrest comes months after another Indian Navy official, Lance Naik Adarsh Kumar alias Lucky, was arrested in Kochi in March for allegedly leaking sensitive information to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Kumar, a native of Agra in Uttar Pradesh, was posted with the Southern Naval Command and was allegedly in contact with an ISI operative. He was arrested after the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad busted an alleged espionage network.

During the investigation, officials found that Kumar had allegedly shared sensitive information and photographs of strategically important naval assets, including warships, with the ISI agent in exchange for money. He was later produced before a court, which remanded him to judicial custody.