14-day judicial custody for 3 Naval War Room theft case accused

New Delhi, Apr 27 (UNI) A Special CBI court today extended the judicial custody of all six arrested accused in the Naval War Room theft case.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Baljeet Arora extended the judicial custody of the accused till May 11.

On April 6, several months after the sensational 'pilfering' of classified documents from the Naval War Room, the CBI had arrested five people, 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 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 (Retd) S K Kohli, Ex Wing Cdr (IAF) Sambhajee L 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.

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