Verma gave info about warships, submarines through sketches, audio notes, got money in return: Cops
Mumbai, May 30 (PTI): The Thane-based engineer, arrested on the charge of spying, shared sensitive information about warships and submarines to the Pakistani intelligence operative through sketches, diagrams and audio notes, and received money from various bank accounts in India and abroad in return, police said.
The 27-year-old mechanical engineer Ravindra Verma, a resident of Kalwa in neighbouring Thane, was arrested by the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of the Maharashtra police on Wednesday. According to police, he was lured into passing classified information after being honey-trapped by a Pakistani agent posing as a woman on Facebook.
"During the investigation, it came to light that Verma shared sensitive information knowingly and intentionally multiple times. In exchange for the information, he received money from various bank accounts from India and abroad," an official told PTI.
It was found that he had shared information about various warships and submarines to the Pakistani Intelligence Operative (PIO), another official said.
Verma worked as a junior engineer with a defence technology firm and by virtue of his work, he had access to the Naval Dockyard in south Mumbai. He would also go on board naval ships and submarines, he said.
"During his visits to the Naval Dockyard, he was not allowed to carry a mobile phone inside. Therefore, after finishing his work there, he used to share sensitive information about warships and submarines by making sketches or diagrams. Sometimes, he would share information through audio notes also," the official added.
The ATS suspects that he also shared the names of submarines and warships to the Pakistani agent, he said.
Verma had been in contact with the Pakistani agent since November 2024, he said.
He had received friend requests on Facebook from users with account names as Payal Sharma and Ispreet in 2024, which he accepted.
While chatting with him, both these account users posing as women initially portrayed that they were from India and worked on a project for which information about warships was required, he said.
After a few sessions of conversations, they honey-trapped him and started digging sensitive information about vital installations, he said, adding that Verma used to share all the sensitive information with Pakistani operatives.
"He was very much aware of what he was doing and to whom he was passing on the sensitive information. He was getting money in exchange for providing the information," he said.
A court has remanded him to ATS custody till Monday.
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FIDE Women's World Cup final: Humpy draws with Divya in first game
Batumi (Georgia), Jul 26 (PTI): Young Indian International Master Divya Deshmukh held her nerves to hold stalwart Koneru Humpy to a draw in game 1 of the FIDE Women's World Cup final, with both players having their share of opportunities to take the lead here on Saturday.
The draw with black means Humpy, the two-time World Rapid champion, holds a slight edge going in the second and final game under the classical chess rules in the two-game mini-match, and should the deadlock continue, games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.
Humpy employed the Queen's gambit accepted as black and it turned out to be a pretty fascinating game right out of the opening as Divya, 19, came up with a piece sacrifice early to deny the black king the right to castle.
Humpy was the first to err and, according to computers, Divya had things under control on the 14th move. However in her bid to recover the extra material, the Nagpur girl, who has secured a place in the Candidates tournament with her sterling performance here, missed a promising continuation.
What followed the exchange of all minor pieces and the ensuing queen and rook endgame gave enough counter play to both players. The game was eventually drawn after Humpy sacrificed her rook to force perpetual checks.
"The game saw an extremely sharp battle with the game ending in a draw in 41 moves. On move 7, Divya made her aggressive intentions clear by offering another pawn,
which looked like home preparation. Humpy made a practical decision of refraining from taking the pawn and a balanced position was reached by move 10 by white," said Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, an Arjuna awardee and the first Indian to get a chess Grandmaster norm.
"However, instead of developing the undeveloped Knight, Humpy retreated the centralised Knight on move 10, giving huge positional advantage to Divya. Divya could have gained huge positional advantage on the 12th move by moving a rook. However, she chose to play for King side attack by sacrificing a piece instead.
"Humpy, too, erred at this stage and instead of moving the King to Queen side, moved it to the King side. Divya, on move 14, could have obtained a crushing attack by threatening a mate by developing her Queen. Instead she chose to exchange a pair of Bishops first, which enabled Humpy to defend her King by returning the piece," said Thipsay.
"Players thus reached a balanced Queen and two Rooks ending. Divya continued to play ambitiously and tried to attack Humpy’s King but the latter defended accurately and the game was drawn in 41 moves by perpetual check," he added.
In the play-off for the third place, Chinese players Zhongyi Tan, the former women's world champion and top seed Lei Tingjie also decided to split points out of a Queen’s gambit declined game.
The opening raised visions of a close contest between the two but having been knocked out of title race in the previous round, none of them wanted to take any huge risk. It was still a middle game when the players shook hands.
With the top two positions sealed for the Indians, the berth to the next Candidates is also assigned, while the player finishing third will also get an entry to the premier event scheduled for 2026.
Results: Divya Deshmukh (Ind) drew with Koneru Humpy (Ind); Zhongyi Tan (Chn) drew with Tingjie Lei (Chn).
