Rahul Gangal, a Canadian citizen, was detained by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday for his alleged participation in a case of defence espionage. Sources claim that Vivek Raghuvanshi, a detained journalist, was providing Gangal with sensitive defence and armed forces documents.
Rahul Gangal has experience in the defence industry and is connected to Roland Berger, a consulting company based in Germany. He is allegedly involved in business dealings involving infrastructure, engineering products, automotive, homeland security, and aerospace.
Rahul Gangal has also worked as a private equity investor in the aerospace, defence, and security industries as well as an investment banker for a prestigious Indian company.
Businessman Rahul Gangal, who had applied for permanent residency in Canada in 2019, was detained in connection with the case when he arrived here on Monday, according to CBI officials.
They added that a special court had sentenced the accused to four days in CBI custody.
The most recent arrest comes months after a retired Navy captain and an independent journalist were detained by a government investigation agency in May on suspicion of espionage.
According to news outlet PTI, former Navy captain Ashish Pathak and independent journalist Vivek Raghuvanshi are charged with illegally gathering sensitive information about defence issues and passing it on to foreign intelligence services.
On the website of a US-based portal on defence and strategic issues, Raghuvanshi is named as India reporter. Prior to his detention, CBI questioned individuals close to him and examined 12 locations in Delhi and Jaipur that were connected to him.
A number of private documents were found during the searches.
Both Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 3 (spying) of the Official Secrets Act were used to charge Raghuvanshi and Pathak.
The CBI claims that the accused disclosed information on secret communications involving national security as well as specifics of strategic and diplomatic discussions between India and friendly nations, which could damage bilateral ties between India and other nations. There are claims that the sensitive information was also given to foreign intelligence services.
The CBI believes that an international network was responsible for the espionage, in which some Indian journalists provided hostile countries’ intelligence agencies with strategic secret information.
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