Pakistani espionage network busted in Rajasthan, two spies arrested in 'Operation Desert Chase'

Days after two Pakistani high commission officials were caught red-handed spying, two more operatives have been caught red-handed this time in Rajasthan.

On specific input, Rajasthan Police arrested Vikas Kumar (29), a civil defence employees at an Army Ammunition Depot near Shri Ganganagar and Chiman Lal (22), a civil contractual employee of Army's Mahajan Field Firing Range (MFFR), Bikaner.

Both were working as espionage agents on behalf of Pakistan's intelligence agency and were giving out details of Ammunition and MFFR, vital military installations in India's Western front.

Fake Facebook account and espionage

Vikas Kumar was "cultivated" by a Pakistani operative using a Facebook profile with the name "Anoshka Chopra".Chopra later exchanged her Indian number and both had regular chats. She introduced him to her "boss" Amit Kumar Singh who was the main handler based in Pakistan and once Vikas had proper communication with "Amit", Anoshka blocked her on Facebook and Whatsapp. Both Amit and Anoshka introduced themselves as a person working at Canteen Store Department (CSD) headquarters at Mumbai

Vikas passed on military information related to ORBAT (Order of Battle; composition and order of a military fighting formation), ammunition (photos, state, quantity, type, arrival, departure), units coming for firing practice/ military exercise to MFFR, personality traits of senior army officers in lieu of money.

Vikas Kumar used to source more information from Chiman Lal with the latter sending him pictures of "water- distribution- register" kept at one of the Pump House of MFFR with details of Army No, Rank, Name, Unit, Total Strength & Quantity of water drawn on almost daily basis.

Vikas confessed to having received at least ₹75,000/- in total from his Pakistani handler for the information he has shared.

The operation to nab both was named Operation Desert Chase. Both were arrested in a joint operation by Rajasthan Police on Monday in Jaipur and will be produced in a local court for further action.

Last week, India declared 2 Pakistani officials 'persona non grata' after they were found to source information in the same manner. The incident came 4 years after India declared one Pakistani official persona non grata for being involved in espionage activity.