Investigation into the alleged leaking of classified documents from the Petroleum Ministry picked up pace today with two more persons being arrested by Delhi Police, taking to seven (rpt) seven the number of those held in the sensational case.
"We have arrested Prayas Jain and Shantanu Saikia in this connection. Both of them are energy consultants who received stolen documents," said a senior police official.
Saikia is a former journalist who runs a web portal on petroleum issues and has his office in Defence Colony in South Delhi. Jain runs his consultancy firm in Patel Nagar in Central Delhi.
Cracking down on a suspected case of corporate espionage, Delhi police had yesterday arrested two Oil Ministry officials and three (rpt) three other middlemen in connection with alleged leaking of classified government documents to energy companies for money.
The Crime Branch sleuths arrested Asharam (58) and Ishwar Singh (56), who were employed as multi-tasking staff in the ministry, along with three of their alleged accomplices.
The other arrested persons include Lalta Prasad and Rakesh Kumar, brother and son of Asharam, who were previously employed as multi tasking staff at Shastri Bhawan.
In the afternoon today, police took all the five arrested yesterday to the Petroleum Ministry. They were taken to the rooms of senior officials which they had allegedly accessed using duplicate keys.
The rooms that they had allegedly accessed in the middle of the night to steal official documents included rooms of joint secretary (Refineries) and joint secretary (Exploration), besides rooms of some directors.
The bunch of keys allegedly found in their possession were used to open the rooms of top ministry officials they are suspected to have accessed, police sources said.
The rooms they had allegedly accessed included that of Special Secretary, two joint secretaries and some directors dealing with sensitives issues like exploration policy, petroleum pricing and gas pricing.
