BALASORE: A team of Crime Branch sleuths quizzed officials and some employees of the Integrated Test Range (ITR), a missile test facility of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) at Chandipur-on-sea here in connection with the ISI espionage case on Wednesday.
On January 23, a special team of Odisha Police had nabbed Iswar Chandra Behera, a contractual employee of the ITR, for his alleged links with Pakistani spying agency ISI. The Crime Branch later took over the investigation.
The CB sleuths, led by ASP DP Chakraborty, questioned the officials including a technical officer under whom Behera was engaged. Earlier, the CB had interrogated another suspected ISI agent Asif Ali who was brought from Meerut jail. Ali had sent money to Behera from Meerut to buy classified information from the test range.
“The DRDO officials were asked to provide the video footage of Behera while talking to some persons during a mission in the Wheeler Island in 2010. One of those persons had introduced himself as Srivastav, a scientist of Advanced System Laboratory (ASL). Later another person contacted Behera with the cell number of Srivastav, who is suspected to have collected information from Behera. The footage has not reached yet,” said the source. With the DRDO authorities reportedly unwilling to provide the footage despite several reminders, the CB is likely to take judicial recourse to get hold of the footage.