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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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
