Too grave to be left to politicians

Chandrakant Naidu in Bhopal

A rooftop antenna announces the presence of “Vocal Heart Info-tech Pvt Ltd”, a call centre at Lajpat Rai Colony, old Bhopal’s thriving commercial hub on Raisen Road. It largely remained unnoticed until of the centre’s managing director Dhruv Saxena and his friend Mohit Agrawal were arrested, a week ago for suspected involvement in a spy ring. A high-end sports utility vehicle Dhruv recently acquired did turn heads. Dhruv’s sudden prosperity was explained by his role in the IT cell of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, BJP’s youth wing. 

Soon after Uttar Pradesh Anti-terrorist Squad’s (UPATS) crackdown on illegal telephone exchanges in January, its Madhya Pradesh counterpart swooped on 11 suspects of an international espionage network earlier this month from Bhopal, Gwalior and Jabalpur,” said MPATS chief Sanjeev Shami. “They were running a parallel exchange, enabling cross-border handlers posing as senior Army officers to call up military personnel posted in J&K. The aim was: dig out details of operations, deployment and installations,” said Shami. At least 40 'SIM-boxes' (China-made gadgets that hold multiple SIM cards) and hundreds of SIM cards were seized from these suspects. 

The modus operandi

Calls made through the internet were sent to these SIM-boxes which redirected the illegal VoIP traffic onto mobile networks. They bypassed the interconnect toll charging points to exploit the difference between the high interconnect rates and the low retail price for on-network calls. This way they evaded paying official call termination fee of an operator. The spy ring facilitated calls from, and to, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, bypassing legal channels. According to a cyber-technology expert, the use of devices such as SIM boxes and spoof calling facility was so far confined to phishing scams and financial rackets. “That they could also be used to compromise national security is quite alarming,” he said.

Engineers Dhruv, Mohit and Manish Gandhi seem to be just cogs in the wheel that had its hub in a village in Satna district. A school dropout Balram Singh, who became part of the cross-border lottery fraud two years ago, was the lynchpin. He was apparently trapped by Pakistan handlers to transfer money to their 'moles' in India. Details of how Balram lured these engineers into the ring are still filtering in.

Balram Singh, who acted as a link between Pakistani handlers and operatives of Madhya Pradesh, maintained details of every transaction. The police claimed Balram maintained passwords for over 300 ATM cards recovered from his possession. The passports show the key members of the ring were called to Dubai to be trained for the job.

The ISI handlers showed the Indian spies how to beat the demonetisation effect. When Balram Singh complained of funds crunch, the Pakistani handler asked him to start small businesses in different towns to show income. In the last two months security agencies had intercepted several calls between Balram Singh and his handler. 

The MPATS says the interrogators of Satvinder Singh and Dadu , who were arrested in November last in RS Pura Sector in J&K had revealed Balram Singh’s role in collecting classified information on locations of security forces, and sharing it through social media.

Political storm

The arrests expectedly triggered a political blame game in the state. The ruling party promptly disowned Dhruv Saxena. However, images of Saxena attending an event with chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and BJYM district head Anshul Tiwari had gone viral by then. Another poster showed Balram Singh with the Sangh Parivar affiliates. The BJYM website designed by Vocal Heart shows him as the district coordinator of the party’s IT cell. BJP's trouble doesn't end here. Another detainee, Jitender Singh, is found to be a close relative of BJP corporator in Gwalior. The Congress alleged that he is also closely associated with Union Minister Narendra Tomar and State Minister Maya Singh. The Shivraj Singh Chouhan government has already suffered due to the police’s role in the Vyapam Scam and in the escape and killing of SIMI activists in a questionable encounter last year.

Senior police officers say the espionage issue is too grave to let political one-upmanship to trivialise it. The ruling party might escape the heat after a while but the nation and the state might end up paying a big price, says a retired director general of police.