A retired Army subedar has been arrested from Barrackpore near Kolkata on the charge of spying for foreign intelligence agencies.
Madan Mohan Pal, who retired as a subedar in 2008, was under watch by the police and various other agencies for some months and he was arrested on Wednesday, Deputy Commissioner Debasish Baij of the Barrackpore Police Commissionerate said.
The 53-year-old Pal was produced before the sub-divisional judicial magistrate court on Wednesday and was remanded to 13 days' police custody.
The police seized a laptop and various other documents, SIM cards and mobile phones from his house at Barrackpore, about 27 km from Kolkata, Baij said, adding Pal allegedly received calls from foreign countries.
Being a retired armyman, Pal had access to army canteens in various parts of the country which he used to visit and get information by chatting with the people there. He allegedly passed this information to foreign spy agencies over phone, Baij said.
During interrogation, Pal claimed he was under the impression that he was working for the Research and Analysis Wing, the external intelligence agency of India.
He said that he had got the job offer while searching the Internet for employment after his retirement.
He received a call in which the caller said he would work for the RAW and supply information on army camps secretly for corroborating with official information, the armyman told his interrogators.
Pal said he started working for Rs 5000 a month but got suspicious after a few months as whenever he made calls to his employer, the calls never got connected.
However, he continued and his salary was later increased to Rs 20,000 a month.
He never had to attend any office and he was told that he would have to attend office after two years, Pal said during interrogation.
Baij said investigation was on to know whether the arrested subedar was speaking the truth.
Map courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
