Rajasthan Police, based on intelligence inputs provided by the Military Intelligence (MI) Jaipur, have arrested a civil defence employee of the Military Engineering Services (MES) in Rajasthan’s Niwaru on charges of working as an “espionage agent” for a Pakistani intelligence agency.
It was reported in September this year that the MI Jaipur learnt about an “espionage agent” in Niwaru, who was passing military-related information to his handlers in Pakistan.
The individual was identified as Ramniwas Gaura, 28, a civil motor driver working with the MES.
It was learnt that Gaura was in contact with one Pakistan Intelligence Operator (PIO) namely Ekta @Jasmeet Kour through Facebook and WhatsApp.
During his two years of contact with the PIO, he shared the information about units and formations at Niwaru and Jaipur as also information about various offices and personnel in these two places.
The case details were shared with the police headquarters in Jaipur, following which and a joint operation was planned to apprehend Gaura.
A joint team of Jaipur Police Intelligence and MI Jaipur was formed, and all the findings were analysed again.
Further details were acquired and conclusive evidence was gathered.
Gaura was eventually detained on Friday. During questioning, he reportedly confessed that he had received a friend request from the PIO’s Facebook profile, “Ekta”, in February/March 2020, and accepted it.
They soon became “very friendly”, shared their WhatsApp numbers with each other and started chatting, apart from interacting over audio/video calls.
The PIO used to use an Indian WhatsApp number and had claimed that she was working with the Principal Controller of Defence Account (PCDA), Shimla.
After the initial friendly chats, Ekta started asking Gaura about information of “military nature” which he readily shared. For monetary favours, he shared his account details with Ekta and in March 2020, demanded Rs 10,000.
Further details are being examined by the Jaipur Police Intelligence and MI. Other agencies have also joined the investigation following Gaura’s arrest.
Rajasthan Police Additional Director General (Intelligence) Umesh Mishra told the media that the team received a tip-off about Gaura passing secret information of the army to Pakistan for the last several days.
The intelligence team started monitoring his activities and the investigation revealed that the accused was in contact with an account created on social media with a fake name (Chhadam).
The secret information of the Indian Army was being sent by the accused through this account and money was also being demanded by him. In fact, he also shared the details of his bank account with the “Pakistani officer”.
Gaura is likely to be produced at a local court soon by the police. A police remand may be requested for further examination. More leads are expected to emerge, officials said.
