Steno comes under UP ATS radar for leaking info about Army

A stenographer in the office of a sub-divisional magistrate in Jhansi was allegedly passing on sensitive information about the Army illegally since 2009 to a "Major" posted at Babina cantonment in the district, the Uttar Pradesh police's Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) said.
On an intelligence input, the ATS had carried out investigation in the SDM office, Jhansi, and found that steno Raghvendra Ahirwar, who was maintaining the correspondence relating to the Army, was passing on information about firing and shelling drill, an ATS spokesman said.
"Earlier too the ISI (Pakistan's spy agency) had adopted the same method of gathering information and in this case the information was being leaked since the past nine years," the spokesperson quoted Inspector general, ATS, Asim Arun as saying.

"There is a need to alert all those on sensitive posts so as to safeguard national interest," IG Arun said.
Raghvendra, when questioned, accepted that he was getting phone calls from someone identifying himself as Major Yadav posted in Babina who used to take this information from him, the spokesman claimed.
Raghvendra said that Major Yadav used to call him from different nine-digit mobile numbers on which call back facility was not allowed, the spokesman said, adding that the stenographer never tried to verify as to why a major-rank official was directly seeking such information.

The stenographer, who was transferred to ADM office in July 2017, has accepted that he passed the information about which unit will undertake firing practice and where despite the letter containing this information bearing "restricted letter" mark on it in an illegal manner to an unauthorised person, the spokesman said.

The role of all SDMs posted there during this period will also be probed as well as the involvement of any other employee, the spokesman said.
He said a technical probe is also on to ascertain from where the internet call being received by the stenographer was being generated.
Since the offence committed by the stenographer provides less than seven years imprisonment, he could not be arrested and the ATS will file a charge-sheet in the court.