A Naik Subedar with Army was today arrested by city police on the charge of sharing information about strategic locations of Army bases and deployment of units with a woman, suspected to be a Pakistani national, through the Internet.
The accused was identified as Patan Kumar Poddar, Naik Subedar of EME Unit at Secunderabad.
Commissioner’s Task Force, in liaison with Army authorities, arrested Poddar acting on a tip-off, Hyderabad Police Commissioner M Mahender Reddy said in a press release.
According to police, Poddar was also involved in a network MARKETINGbusiness for a company named ‘Secured Life’, and had tried to persuade his colleagues in the Army to join his network.
His posting provided him opportunity to target the defence personnel who came into contact with him mainly for train reservations, police said.
Some time ago a woman, apparently a Pakistani national, befriended him through social media, and got him to give her information about Army’s strategic locations and deployment of some defence units, the Commissioner said.
She had shared with him her nude pictures to entice him, according to the investigation officer. “We will check his emails and his social media accounts to verify this,” said the officer.
Poddar spoke with several Army personnel and gathered information about locations of artillery regiments, commands, corps, division headquarters, etc.
Police have registered a case under Official Secrets Act (for espionage) as well as under Prize Chits Money Circulation Banning Act, 1977 (for getting involved in the network MARKETING business) against him. At present he has been lodged in judicial custody.
EXCLUSIVE INTELLIGENCE SECURITY BREACHES By The Way, I Dropped It India’s defence data could be an open secret. Ask the NTRO bosses who lost their laptops. SAIKAT DATTA – OUTLOOK INDIA.COM
MAGAZINE | AUG 30, 2010
The Agni missile: India’s nuclear delivery mechanism could well be in enemy knowledge
In 2006, Ravind Sistala was one among a clutch of scientists on deputation from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) in New Delhi. Set up in the aftermath of the 1999 Kargil War, NTRO was meant to be a single technical intelligence facility to keep watch on India’s hostile neighbours. It was also supposed to issue warning signals to those manning India’s missile systems and nuclear warheads in real time so that they could retaliate in case of a possible enemy strike. Sistala’s was a crucial job. The fortysomething was the centre director of NTRO’s missile monitoring division, a position that called for high levels of responsibility and secrecy. But very few within India’s security apparatus are aware, even today, that Sistala was involved in one of the biggest security breaches in India’s post-Independence history. He compromised a Rs 1,850-crore intelligence-gathering programme that had key linkages to India’s growing nuclear arsenal and missile systems. Unencrypted ‘Top Secret’ data pertaining to these was stored on Sistala’s Hewlett-Packard laptop (given to him by NTRO) which disappeared mysteriously while he was on his way to the Delhi airport in early 2006. Did the information-packed computer fall into the wrong hands? Was it stolen by an enemy agent? Even today, no one knows where the laptop is. If still in enemy hands, it has the potential to inflict immense damage.
Ideally, such a security leak should have set alarm bells ringing and occasioned a swift and thorough investigation by the IB, RAW and Delhi Police. But rather than give the incident the attention and inquiry it deserved, a small but extremely powerful group of people—comprising a PMO official, DRDO scientists on deputation to NTRO and intelligence officials—helped Sistala escape any indictment by holding just an in house inquiry, which unearthed little. The missing laptop forgotten, Sistala continued as the head of the sensitive missile programme for another two years, and then returned to the DRDO.
Two years after the Sistala episode, another security breach took place in the NTRO. Arun Dixit, the centre director of the organisation’s atomic explosion division (AED), lost his laptop somewhere in Washington DC during an official trip to the US with the NTRO chairman. The laptop was crammed with top secret data on India’s intelligence on the nuclear weapons programmes of several countries, including Pakistan, China and North Korea. But like in Sistala’s case, the powerful lobby of defence scientists once again scuttled a thorough investigation. The leak was buried and kept out of the files. Dixit too escaped any scrutiny and still serves in the NTRO in the very same post.
Lost Laptops And Their ‘X’ Files
Place Delhi
Year 2006
Official Involved Ravind Sistala
Designation Centre Director (missile monitoring division)
Organisation National Technical Research Organisation
Incident Laptop goes missing from his car
Secret Data Lost
Presentations on Indian efforts to monitor missiles of neighboring countries
Details on the capabilities of the nuclear delivery systems of Pakistan and China
Response options available to India’s nuclear forces (Strategic Forces Command)
Deployment of radars to counter incoming missiles
Vulnerable points in India’s air defence network
Action taken None. Laptop not recovered. Official transferred to DRDO in a more sensitive position.
***
Place Washington DC
Year 2008
Official Involved Arun Dixit
Designation Centre Director (atomic devices division)
Organisation NTRO
Secret Data Lost
Defence nuclear programmes of neighbouring countries
Nuclear proliferation in Asia
Dirty bombs being made in neighbouring countries
Action taken None. Laptop not recovered. After probe, errant official retained in the same organisation.
***
Place Delhi
Year 2003
Organisation Defence Research and Development Organisation
Incident 53 computers go missing; later found with hard disks removed
Secret Data Lost
Secret coding of all communication used by the Intelligence Bureau (IB), Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the defence forces, and the paramilitary forces, including Border Security Force
Logs of intercepted Pakistani communications
Action taken Case still unsolved. None of the hard disks have been recovered. DRDO has practically closed the case.
SistalaandDixitclearly violated OSA,butescaped. They were also liableto 14 years’imprisonment.
The NTRO was set up in the summer of ’03. A year earlier, a Group of Ministers had handpicked RAW special secretary R.S. Bedi to set up the new intelligence outfit. Bedi started the process by setting up an office in room no. 326, Sardar Patel Bhavan, in the heart of Delhi, on March 29, 2003. The organisation was formally notified in July.
Set up to plug gaps in India’s security establishment post the Kargil debacle, the NTRO’s charter eventually went much beyond the mere act of gathering intelligence. It became a key element within the security apparatus, hitting headlines recently when Outlook reported its ability to pluck GSM phone calls off the air. Bedi had served in RAW’s Aviation Research Centre, which monitored the missile and atomic programmes of neighbours. NTRO took on this responsibility after it came into being.
NTRO’s task thus was to monitor and gather intelligence on all missile programmes in the region and convey the data in real time to the Strategic Forces Command (SFC), a special military organisation that mans India’s nuclear arsenal and would deploy it in the event of a nuclear war. The SFC would also, based on NTRO data, periodically review and upgrade its positioning of nuclear missiles, and coordinate with the defence forces in launching a counter-strike against any nuclear threat.
This called for a credible linkage between a vast and intricate network of ground-based radars, satellites, secret command codes and SFC’s nuclear arsenal. NTRO’s missile monitoring division established these linkages and set up an early warning network for the SFC. Sistala had a key role in creating these linkages and as such had access to the most sensitive data on India’s capabilities, response time and secret codes. Naturally enough, all these details were part of the presentations, notes, documents, files and folders—all marked ‘Top Secret’—he had on the laptop he was given by the NTRO. Standard rules mandate that a laptop given by the organisation cannot be taken home or used to connect to the Internet. But these being early days for NTRO, Sistala was travelling around the country making presentations to security officials, beginning with then NSA M.K. Narayanan to the three service chiefs, the SFC commander, the intelligence chiefs and other top DRDO scientists who were to work on the technological aspects of the project.
This is the time his laptop went missing. Shockingly, NTRO buried the episode in no time. A preliminary inquiry was ordered to be carried out by Brigadier Anil Malhotra, its counter-intelligence official, but it was quickly wound up. By this time, Bedi had retired from NTRO. A powerful lobby of defence scientists, led by R. Chidambaram, the principal scientific advisor to the government, had already determined his successor: DRDO scientist K.V.S.S. Prasad Rao. Rao had no previous experience in intelligence but he had served as the staff officer to Chidambaram for several years. Sistala, also from the DRDO, got a much-needed reprieve from the ongoing inquiry. He continued with the missile monitoring division for two more years before returning to the DRDO to work on air defence radars.
Outlook’s attempts to elicit an official comment from NTRO via a detailed questionnaire sent a week before going to print met with silence. Phone calls and text messages to NTRO chairman Prasad Rao, its advisor P.V. Kumar, Sistala and Dixit evoked no response either. DRDO, in a cryptic response to an Outlook query, said it wasn’t aware of any lapses by Sistala at NTRO.
Such security breaches are nothing new for the clique that still lords it over DRDO and NTRO. In Oct ’03, 53 computers were stolen one night from two DRDO labs—the Systems Analysis Group and the Institute for Systems Analysis and Studies—in Metcalfe House in Delhi. The computer carcasses were found later, but the hard disks had been removed. They contained secret encryption codes and communications of the army, navy, air force and all central police organisations. Till date, no DRDO scientist has been blamed. Many have even been promoted. A police investigation made no headway, while an internal inquiry remains alive on paper even though many of its members have retired.
It’s also ironical that while many other officials have been prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) on flimsy and concocted cases (see following story), Sistala and Dixit have escaped, despite being in clear violation of the OSA. In fact, since the leaks were related to India’s nuclear defence as well as secret codes, they could easily have attracted a penalty of 14 years’ imprisonment. Instead, the duo has continued in their careers. Should India’s intelligence agencies really be allowed to operate without even a modicum of accountability?
In their various pronouncements since the censorship controversy broke, Mr Kapil Sibal and Mr Sachin Pilot, the minister and minister of state respectively in the ministry of communications and information technology, have been vocally insisting that the government does not want to resort to censorship and believes in the constitutional right of free speech.
These pieties were once again repeated today by the two ministers after meeting representatives of social media companies, including Google, Facebook and Twitter, for what is now being spun as an “open dialogue to empower individuals and citizens” while reliable sources also reveal that their ministry “is mulling forming an inter-ministerial group to work out a mechanism to monitor and avoid uploading of any defamatory material on Internet.”
At the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) blog, Pranesh Prakash points to the government’s patent insincerity because this sudden talk of ‘transparency’ and ‘dialogue’ came only after it was exposed in the press that the Department of Information Technology was holding secret talks with Internet companies.
He also underlines the clandestine manner in which the government wants Internet companies to ‘self-regulate’ user-uploaded content. One of the reasons for this arm-twisting is to prevent the sort of embarrassment caused by the Google Transparency Report which had demolished the government claims of wanting to curb “hate speech” or that affecting “religious sensitivities” as it tabulated that out that as many as 255 (71%) of the 358 complaints made to Google in the last six months, were about ‘government criticism’ and only 8, or 2.23% were about “hate speech”.
With self-censorship, there would be no need for these requests for removal in the first place, nor will sites have to be blocked officially using the IT Act.
In the article we carried yesterday, Who Plays Judge, Nikhil Pahwa of Medianama provided a reasonable hypothesis about Mr Kapil Sibal’s recent actions:
one of my fears is that something as draconian as pre-censorship may actually be used to make the IT Rules look justifiable, like something of a rollback. People will be furious about suggestions to pre-censor the web, but in comparison, perhaps be willing to accept arbitrary and opaque post-censorship, which is what the the IT Rules allow. The IT Rules need to be amended as well.
These rules, which were made by the Department of Information Technology and not by the Parliament, require that all intermediaries remove content that is ‘disparaging’, ‘relating to… gambling’, ‘harm minors in any way’, to which the user ‘does not have rights’. When was the last time you checked wither you had ‘rights’ to a joke before forwarding it? Did you share a Twitter message containing the term “#IdiotKapilSibal”, as thousands of people did a few days ago? Well, that is ‘disparaging’, and Twitter is required by the new law to block all such content. The government of Sikkim can run advertisements for its PlayWin lottery in newspapers, but under the new law it cannot do so online. As you can see, through these ridiculous examples, the Intermediary Guidelines are very badly thought-out and their drafting is even worse. Worst of all, they are unconstitutional, as they put limits on freedom of speech that contravene Article 19(1)(a) and 19(2) of the Constitution, and do so in a manner that lacks any semblance of due process and fairness.
CIs’s draft report on the Intermediary Liability in India: Chilling Effects on Free Expression on the Internet 2011 looks at these rules critically. For the purposes of this study, takedown notices were sent to a sample comprising of 7 intermediaries and their response to the notices was documented.
The results of the paper clearly demonstrate that the Rules indeed have a chilling effect on free expression. Specifically, the Rules create uncertainty in the criteria and procedure for administering the takedown thereby inducing the intermediary to err on the side of caution and over-comply with takedown notices to suppress legitimate expressions. Additionally, the Rules do not establish sufficient safeguards to prevent misuse and abuse of the takedown process to suppress legitimate expressions.
Of the 7 intermediaries to which takedown notices were sent, 6 intermediaries over-complied with the notices, despite the apparent flaws in them. From the responses to the takedown notices, it can be reasonably presumed that not all intermediaries have sufficient legal competence or resources to deliberate on the legality of an expression. Even if such intermediary has sufficient legal competence, it has a tendency to prioritise the allocation of legal resources according to its perceived importance of the expressions.
Further, if such subjective determination is required to be done in a limited timeframe and in the absence of adequate facts and circumstances, the intermediary mechanically complies (without application of mind) with the takedown notice.
The results also demonstrate that the Rules are procedurally flawed as they ignore all elements of natural justice. The third party provider of information whose expression is censored is not informed about the takedown, let alone given an opportunity to be heard before or after the takedown. There is no recourse for the third party provider of information to have the removed information restored or put back if it does come to his knowledge. The intermediary is under no obligation to provide a reasoned decision for rejecting or accepting a takedown notice. There is also no requirement for disclosure or transparency in the takedown process.
These Rules and all this recent talk of ‘self-regulation’ are of a piece with the government’s overall paranoia of the power of the internet and various whistleblower websites that are coming up (eg, consider the recent case involvingcorruptionindrdo.com). Because there are constitutional safe-guards against censorship, surreptitious measures are being adopted in a number of ways. As Prakash points out:
Mr. Sibal’s latest proposed amendment to the Copyright Act, which is before the Rajya Sabha right now, has a provision called section 52(1)(c) by which anyone can send a notice complaining about infringement of his copyright. The Internet company will have to remove the content immediately without question, even if the notice is false or malicious. The sender of false or malicious notices is not penalized. But the Internet company will be penalized if it doesn’t remove the content that has been complained about. The complaint need not even be shown to be true before the content is removed. Indeed, anyone can complain about any content, without even having to show that they own the rights to that content. The government seems to be keen to have the power to remove content from the Internet without following any ‘due process’ or fair procedure. Indeed, it not only wants to give itself this power, but it is keen on giving all individuals this power.
