Army jawan 'honeytrapped' by suspected Pakistan ISI operative, arrested in Rajasthan on espionage charges

The Rajasthan Police on Friday arrested a 22-year-old Indian Army jawan in Jaisalmer on espionage charges. Intelligence agencies found that the soldier —  identified as Sombeer Singh — had been in touch with a Pakistani woman, suspected to be an operative of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), on social media, the  Hindustan Times reported. Defence public relations officer Colonel Sambit Ghosh told ANI that the army was providing all assistance to civilian authorities in the investigation. The jawan had allegedly been “honeytrapped” by a woman posing as one Anika Chopra on Facebook. She had claimed to be a captain in the army medical corps, News18 reported. The woman had been in touch with Singh since 2016 and used to send him lewd messages and photos, according to  The Tribune . The jawan was caught sending locations of army exercises and images of Arjun Tanks, among other classified information, to the woman. [caption id=“attachment_3417160” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational photo. Reuters[/caption] According to the Hindustan Times, the accused had shared the information after being lured by money. The police has also discovered that secret agencies in Pakistan had transferred money to Singh’s account. The Indian Army jawan was arrested under relevant sections of the Officials Secret Act, 1923. This comes months after teams of the Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squads arrested an employee at the BrahMos Aerospace unit in Maharashtra’s Nagpur on charges of spying . The accused, identified as Nishant Agrawal, had been working at the BrahMos Missile Research Centre for four years, and was accused of passing on information to the ISI. Furthermore, on Wednesday, Chief of Army Staff Bipin Rawat had  warned of the dangers of social media . Speaking at a panel discussion at the Raisina Dialogue in Delhi, Rawat had said that there was need to control social media as it was aiding the spread of radicalisation. “Radicalisation through social media is becoming one of the reasons for raising funds for terrorist organisations,” he had said.