An Indian Navy staffer posted at the naval headquarters in Delhi has been arrested for allegedly leaking sensitive information to a Pakistani handler in exchange for money, PTI reported on Thursday.

Vishal Yadav, an upper division clerk in the Directorate of Dockyard, is from Rewari in Haryana. He was arrested in Rajasthan’s Jaipur on Wednesday.

Yadav had allegedly shared information about Operation Sindoor with the handler.

The matter will be jointly investigated by several security agencies.

Vishnu Kant Gupta, Jaipur’s inspector general of police (Crime Investigation Department-Security) said that Yadav had allegedly leaked the classified details to a female Pakistani handler who was posing as an Indian woman, PTI reported.

“Yadav confessed to receiving approximately Rs 2 lakh in total for the information he passed on,” Gupta was quoted as saying. “This included Rs 50,000 for leaking information related to Operation Sindoor.”

Some of the payments were through cryptocurrency, said the police officer.

Yadav was approached by the Pakistani operative through the social media platform Facebook, PTI quoted unidentified intelligence officials as saying. The handler had sent a friend request using a fake profile with the name Priya Sharma.

The two communicated regularly on WhatsApp and later Telegram, which offers end-to-end encryption.

End-to-end encryption refers to a method of secure communication in which only the sender of the message and the receiver can access the content. No one in between, including the service provider, has access to the communication.

Yadav initially received payments of Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000 for lower-grade information, the police were quoted as saying. He was subsequently encouraged to provide more valuable intelligence in exchange for higher payments.

The forensic examination of his mobile phone uncovered extensive evidence, including financial transactions, sensitive messages and confidential data that he had sent to the Pakistani handler, PTI quoted the police as saying.

Since May, several persons, including two YouTubers, have been arrested on allegations of spying for Pakistan.

The Rajasthan Police had also on June 3 said that a state government employee was arrested for allegedly spying for Pakistan. The person, Shakur Khan, had been in regular contact with persons associated with the Pakistani High Commission, the police said.

The arrests came amid heightened military tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad that escalated on May 7 when the Indian military carried out strikes – codenamed Operation Sindoor – on what it claimed were terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The strikes were in response to the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, which killed 26 persons on April 22.

On May 30, the National Investigation Agency conducted raids at 15 locations in eight states that were suspected to be linked to alleged Pakistani intelligence operatives.

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