New Delhi: A 31-year-old Indian Navy sailor was taken into custody on October 3 for allegedly leaking sensitive defense details and classified maritime intelligence to a Pakistani intelligence operative via a suspected social media honey-trap, according to security officials.
The arrested sailor, identified as Pradeep Mukherjee, was apprehended at INS Agrani—the Navy’s premier leadership training establishment situated in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu—by officers from the Andhra Pradesh Police Counter Intelligence (CI) cell. Mukherjee, who hails from West Bengal, had enlisted in the Indian Navy in 2014 and was regularly stationed under the Eastern Naval Command in Visakhapatnam. At the time of his apprehension, he had been stationed at the Coimbatore base for roughly a week while undergoing a specialized management development program.
According to investigative findings, a female operative acting on behalf of Pakistani intelligence had established contact with Mukherjee online several months prior. Investigators allege that the digital relationship was leveraged to elicit classified operational secrets, notably high-level details regarding fleet deployments, sensitive naval platforms, and strategic layouts at the Eastern Naval Command base in Visakhapatnam.
The specialized Andhra Pradesh CI cell, which routinely probes cross-border espionage networks, picked up Mukherjee’s suspicious online transactions and interactions during regular counter-intelligence surveillance. Following targeted monitoring that corroborated unauthorized transmissions, security teams coordinated with naval authorities to execute the arrest.
