Navy leak: Now IAF officer under scanner

The Indian Express had reported today on evidence that pointed to DNO officers passing information to a blacklisted Mumbai firm, Shank Ocean Engineering, headed by former Naval officer K Shankaran—Navy confirmed that he was a ‘‘distant relative’’ of Chief of Naval Staff Admiral, Arun Prakash.

The security breach is understood to have come to light after Military Intelligence started investigations against Surve. Investigators are also probing the possibility of a ‘‘honey trap’’ with one particular name cropping up regularly.

Surve ‘‘appeared quite casual, referring to USB Drives (the pen drives which contained the downloaded data) as golf balls,’’ sources said.

Data seized by the BoI also revealed an exchange of e-mails between Shankaran and Commander V Rana, who has deposed before the Board along with Captain Kashyap Kumar and Commander V K Jha.

Sources said Rana had written to Shankaran, seeking his opinion on Shallow Water Patrol Crafts, which the Navy planned to purchase. Apparently, Shankaran gave the names of some companies and offered assistance.

Incidentally, Rana addressed Shankaran, who was his senior in the Navy, as ‘‘Sir’’.

The name of an ex-Navy officer, Commander K K Sharma, has also come up in investigations for ‘‘buying commercial intelligence’’. After taking premature retirement in 1995, Sharma was working with York, an international company providing air-conditioning for ships and submarines.

Director (Naval Operations) Capt Kashyap Kumar—allegedly a close associate of Surve in the leak—seems to have provided Sharma with schematic diagrams of ships to help him improve his bid, sources said.

Commander Sharma, when contacted, denied the charge and said that he had not won any bid in the past two years. He told The Indian Express, ‘‘Anyway, we don’t deal with the directors but only with ship building sites and shipyards.’’