COIMBATORE: A special team of the Counter Intelligence (CI) Cell of Andhra Pradesh Police landed at the high-security INS Agrani campus at Red Fields in Coimbatore on Saturday and arrested a serving Indian Navy sailor for allegedly leaking classified defence information to a Pakistani woman intelligence operative.
According to the sources, the arrested sailor has been identified as Pradeep Mukherjee (31), from West Bengal. He joined the Indian Navy in 2014 and is currently posted as a sailor under the Eastern Naval Command at Visakhapatnam. He had been staying inside INS Agrani Coimbatore, a premier naval leadership training establishment, for the last week to attend a management development course.
The sources said he allegedly fell prey to a honeytrap laid on social media. A woman handler, believed to be a Pakistani intelligence officer, befriended him a few months ago and later allegedly extracted sensitive details about the Visakhapatnam naval base.
The CI Cell, which handles terror modules and cross-border espionage, detected his suspicious online activity during surveillance and, after obtaining permission from Naval authorities, executed the arrest in Coimbatore.
He was taken to Vijayawada for further investigation after being produced before a local court.