Headlines
Former reporter held in petroleum ministry case
A former journalist with an energy consultant has been arrested in
connection with the petroleum ministry document leakage case, police
said Friday, adding that some more people would be arrested soon.
Santanu
Saikia, who runs a web portal and covered crime stories for several
years, was arrested early Friday for his alleged role in providing
secret documents of the petroleum ministry to corporate houses.
Prayas Jain, a Melbourne-based energy consultant, was also arrested Friday.
Delhi
Police chief B.S. Bassi said that Saikia and Jain, both ran some sort
of an independent website where they uploaded the analysis of the stolen
documents.
"...And this information was further used by
corporate houses. They also shared this information with some
individuals in return of money," Bassi told reporters.
Bassi,
however, refused to reveal the names of the organisations who benefitted
from this. He said: "It will not be good to reveal the names of these
organisations as the investigation is still on."
The Delhi Police
Thursday arrested five people, including two employees of the petroleum
ministry and three others, for stealing documents and leaking them to
corporate houses.
Rakesh Kumar, 30, Lalta Prasad, 36, both
brothers and residents of Delhi, and Raj Kumar Chaubey, 39, a resident
of Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, were held red-handed with the photocopy
of some secret documents in Shastri Bhawan Feb 17.
Based on
information provided by them, government employees - Asharam, 58, and
Ishwar Singh, 56 - were also arrested. They were part of multi-tasking
staff (MTS) in Shastri Bhawan.
Police Thursday said Kumar and
Prasad were former MTS employees, while Chaubey was their associate who
never worked at Shastri Bhawan.
The police chief said the initial
investigation revealed that some individuals who were provided these
documents also worked with some corporate companies.
"The
arrested people (Kumar and Prasad) did not steal particular documents,
they instead used to lift any document lying on the table," he said.
The
theft of the documents had been taking place in the office of the
ministry located in the high-security Shastri Bhawan near parliament
house.
All the seven arrested have been charged under sections of stealing, forgery, trespass and criminal conspiracy, Bassi said.
When
asked if the accused will be booked under the Official Secrets Act, he
said: "We will first check with the petroleum ministry if these
documents come under the purview of secret documents. Only then we will
lodge a case under the Official Secrets Act."
Asked if other people could be questioned in connection with the case, he said "relevant people will be questioned".
All the arrested would be produced in the Patiala House court Friday.
Bassi said that if the probing officials find it necessary, they will seek remand of the accused.
Earlier, the crime branch took the five accused to Shastri Bhawan to recreate the scene.