Three-day CBI custody for Naval War Room theft case accused

New Delhi, Apr 10 (UNI) Prime accused in the Naval War Room theft case and ex-Wing Commander Sambaji Lal Survee, who was arrested yesterday, was remanded to CBI custody till April 17.

A pen drive, given to Survee by co-accused Kulbhushan Parashar was recovered from him.

CBI sought he custody alleging that secret documents relating to the navy and air force had to be recovered from him, besides he had to be confronted with the other accused.

Survee had been introduced to Parashar by wing cdr (retd) K S Kohli, who was yet to be arrested.

Meanwhile, Mukesh Bajaj and Rajrani Jaiswal were arrested from Pune in Maharashtra and brought to the capital on transit remand on April 8 and Vinod Kumar Jha was brought from Muzaffarpur in Bihar, and sent to three-day CBI custody, had been further remanded to the investigative agency's custody till April 13.

All the other accused arrested in the case were in CBI custody till April 19.

On April six, several months after the sensational 'pilfering' of classified Defence Ministry documents from the Naval War Room, the CBI had arrested five peoples, including three former Naval officers, and raided 17 places across six cities.

Among those arrested include Lt Cdr (Retd) Kulbhushan Parashar, who was picked from the IGI Airport soon after he landed here from London on April 5.

While four places were raided in Delhi, 13 other places were searched in Mumbai, Chandigarh, Pune, Goa and Muzaffarpur.

The other four arrested were ex-Naval Commanders Virender Rana (Delhi) and Vinod Kumar Jha (Muzaffarpur) who were arrested on April 5 along with two civilians, Bajaj and Jaiswal (both arrested from Pune on April 6).

The searches yielded several 'incriminating' documents.

Among searches conducted at 17 locations, mostly at the residences of the accused included that of a Mumbai-based chartered accountant and the factory premises in Mumbai and Goa of another accused.

In total, nine people had been accused in the case under the Official Secrets Act. Besides the five arrested, four others were Lt Cdr (Retd) Ravishankaran, Wing Cdr Kohli, Ex Wing Cdr (IAF) Surve and Ex Captain (Navy) Kashyap Kumar.

The FIR of the Defence Ministry mentioned that three officers of the Indian Navy and another from the Indian Air Force along with retired officers and others conspired to trade-off classified documents and information of the Defence Ministry which affected the security of the country.

The FIR charged the accused with offences under the Indian Penal Code and Officials Secrets Act.

Of the three former Naval officers, two were produced before a Special court here and sent to 14-day CBI custody.

UNI XR VD VC2002