Honey traps are one of the big security concerns for the Indian Armed Forces. In the history of the world, information is a powerful weapon. Throughout history many methods of spying have been used in order to extract information.
In India, many new recruits are being targeted to extract vital information from the army. The Pakistani ISI and even Chinese Intelligence Agency are using honey traps to lure and blackmail young soldiers to leak sensitive information of the Indian Armed Forces.
Upon some research we came to know about the honey traps from 2012 because before this digital data transfer was difficult so leaking information was quite difficult. But now, every soldier has mobile phones and young soldiers are their main targets.
Let’s take a look on some of the incidents of honey traps happened since 2012 :-
In 2012, a former leading Aircraftsman was arrested under Official Secrets Act. His name was K.K. Ranjith from Punjab’s Bhatinda Airforce. He came in contact with a Pakistani Intelligence Officer named Damini McNaught, he was lured to work as a defence analyst for a UK based Magazine.
In between 2015 and 2017, five cases of honey trapping were reported by the Indian Army and the Indian Navy. The victims were lured by Pakistani Intelligence Agencies and then they were blackmailed to transfer the sensitive information about the Indian Armed Forces to them.
In April 2018, a trainee soldier from Rohtak was found to have shared multiple photos of 18 different Army Recruitment Centres.
In November 2019, a soldier was arrested on charges of sharing confidential and strategic information about the Indian Army through social media.
Soldier was honey trapped by a woman agent of Pakistan’s ISI. He was a young soldier as he was just 25 years old and his name is Bichitra Berhara. He was getting a cash payment for providing such information to the woman and the money was transferred into his bank account.
After that a total of 150 profiles were identified by the Indian Army which were used by Pakistan to lure the Indian soldiers into the honeytrap.
In February 2020, the Indian Navy imposed a strict ban on the use of smartphones and social media applications like Facebook by its soldiers.
It was a step taken as a result of a honey trap in which at least 11 Navy personnel and 2 civilians were arrested. They were connected in a spy case where Pakistani Intelligence Officer honey trapped them on social media.
In September 2020, a woman was arrested in honey trapping a Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). She was arrested when she lured the scientist and kidnapped him for a ransom of 10 lakh rupees from the scientist’s family.
The Indian Navy has an investigation called Operation Dolphin Nose to track down personnel being honey trapped.
We are trying to show a message that the young soldiers are the main targets of these Intelligence Agencies. So, new recruits should be careful about these kinds of scams. We are always supporting our Indian Army.
By EncycloIndia
