Hyderabad: Police have filed a chargesheet against a former outsourcing employee at a DRDO facility in Hyderabad, nearly three years after he was arrested for allegedly leaking sensitive defence information to a suspected ISI agent.
An FSL report confirmed that the accused, D. Mallikarjun Reddy, working as a lab engineer at the DRDO complex, had shared classified data. However, police clarified that the information leaked was not comprehensive enough to be used or exploited for any terrorist operations. The FSL report, which took nearly three years, has now provided a strong lead in the case, indicating the involvement of the accused.
The accused was arrested in June 2022 after he was allegedly caught in a honeytrap orchestrated by a suspected ISI operative from Pakistan. The handler approached him via Facebook under the guise of a woman claiming to be working for a defence journal in the United States.
Over a period of six months, the two communicated extensively and even exchanged numbers, eventually shifting to WhatsApp. Mallikarjun was manipulated, and police said he even sent her money on multiple occasions.
The local police worked hand-in-hand with Counter Intelligence (CI), which monitors suspicious online activity linked to sensitive defence establishments, including DRDO and RCI. Their coordinated cyber surveillance detected unusual and persistent interactions between a foreign IP address operated by a Pakistani ISI handler and a local IP address traced to Mallikarjun.
The authorities alerted DRDO and arrested the accused in a joint operation with the SOT teams in June 2022.
A police source told Deccan Chronicle that although the accused had deleted much of the chat history, cyber forensic experts recovered the data from his seized mobile phone. “The retrieved content confirmed that he shared restricted information belonging to the DRDO.”
While the material was considered sensitive, officials confirmed that it was not of full-fledged value and did not pose a direct threat to national security. “This was clearly a case of honeytrap. The accused was made to believe that the person on the other end was a woman, developed an emotional relationship, and was exploited to extract defence-related information,” the officer said.
After his arrest in 2022, Mallikarjun was held in judicial custody for six months and was later released on bail. He was also asked to resign from his position at the DRDO unit as part of internal disciplinary proceedings.
The case was registered under IPC Section 409, which pertains to criminal breach of trust, the Official Secrets Act, and the Prevention of Misappropriation of Government Property Act. The chargesheet, supported by the now-submitted FSL report, was filed in court in July for further legal action.
