Newsroom24x7 Desk

Delhi: The Delhi Police have busted an espionage racket and arrested a gang involved in stealing documents from the Ministry of Petroleum and natural Gas.

After the initial arrest of three persons near Shastri Bhawan here, two more arrests were made. It is learnt that with the nabbing of another two persons the number of arrests in this case has gone up to 7.

An official at Reliance Industries, reportedly said that it is learned that one of its officials had been detained in connection with the case. The official further said that the company is unaware of the details of this case.

Acting on a tip off that two persons, along with their associates are involved in procuring, obtaining, and stealing the official documents by trespassing into the offices of Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) at Shastri Bhawan and on February 17 they would be entering these offices in the night, a trap was laid and a police team spotted three persons near Shastri Bhawan in a sedan. Two persons alighted and went inside while the third remained in the car. After about two hours, when both the persons returned and got into the car, all three were nabbed. They were identified as Lalta Prasad (36 yrs), resident of Khichdipur and Rakesh Kumar (30 yrs) resident of Nauroji Nagar in the capital and Raj Kumar Chaubey (39 yrs), resident of Vaishali in Ghaziabad. Official documents were seized from them. They were using duplicate keys to enter the offices of the MoPNG. Forged Id-cards and fraudulently obtained temporary passes were also recovered from them. The car used for committing the crime had an unauthorized signage declaring that it was a Government of India vehicle. A case has been registered against them at the Crime Branch Police station.

On interrogation, it was revealed that Lalta Prasad and Rakesh Kumar were earlier employed on a temporary basis as MultiTasking Staff at Shastri Bhawan. Both of them had quit their job in 2012. During their stint at Shastri Bhawan, they realized that they could easily lay hands on the official documents. They further disclosed that they were assisted by their father Asharam and Ishwar Singh, both of them also Multi-Tasking Staff employees at Shastri Bhawan. Recently CCTV cameras had been installed at Shastri Bhawan but in order to evade surveillance, they used to switch off the CCTV cameras. Both Asharam (58 yrs), resident of Nouraoji Nagar and Ishwar Singh (56 yrs) resident of Nangloi have also been arrested.

Investigations further revealed that the stolen documents were being sold by these people to some persons associated with private energy consultancy company as well as to those in the Petrochemical/Energy industry.

The Delhi Police team that has busted this case was led by ACP KPS Malhotra consisting of Insprs. Sunil Kumar, Arvind Kumar, KulbirSingh, PC Yadav, Pankaj Singh, SIs Neeraj Kumar, Ritesh Kumar, Vishal Singh,Sanjeev Yadav, Ravinder Tevatia, Gurmeet Singh, Dataram, HCs Ajeet, SurenderRathee, Vijay Pratap, Rakesh Rawat, Aslup Khan, Cts Satbir, Vijender, Ranjeet,Anoop, Mohit, Sikander and Rahul under the guidance of DCP Bhisham Singh and overall supervision of Addl. CP Ashok Chand.