It’s not every day that you get to wear a uniform of the coveted Indian Air Force. As quoted rightly in Spiderman, ‘With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility.’ Along with the honor of being a part of the esteemed Indian Air Force, comes a bunch of responsibilities, which needs to be followed in order to maintain of the force the members are a part of, which includes the oath of secrecy, where anything that is of prime importance to the interests of the nation’s security, must not be shared randomly with anyone.Sadly, this simple fact was absent in the case of Group Captain, Arun Marwaha.
Arun Marwaha succumbed to a honeytrap on Facebook, and was blackmailed into leaking some classified documents of IAF to two fake FB accounts, allegedly handled and supervised by officers of the notorious Pakistani intelligence wing, ISI, which had the potential of putting the national security in jeopardy. As of now, Mr. Arun Marwaha has been arrested by Delhi Police, and his equipment stand confiscated.
It all began, when two handles, by the name of Kiran Randhawa and Mahima Patel, came into contact with Arun Marwaha, who was quite active on Facebook and used to frequently upload pictures on his profile, which sometimes included his own jumps and non-classified exercises. Once the contact was established, promiscuous chats were exchanged, and this was the moment, when Mr. Arun Marwaha was finally under the claws of the honey trap.
Soon enough, Arun Marwaha was blackmailed into leaking classified documents in his possession. He moved out of Facebook and began initiating the exchange through WhatsApp. As of now, according to the statements of the investigating officer, who opts to stay anonymous, Mr. Arun Marwaha is accused of sharing close to five classified documents with the two ‘ISI’ Handles. To quote the officer, this was a ’clear cut ISI operation from the start. Once in, there was no way out.’
As of now, even though the claims as made by the Arun Marwaha are being examined, following information have allegedly been leaked out:-
1.) Documents related to the training exercises of the Marine Commando Force
2.) Documents related to the training exercises of the Garud Commando Force of the IAF
3.) Documents related to the Garud Shakti Exercise
If true, the leaking of such prestigious documents is not only disastrous, but also extremely dangerous in the present scenario. The feelings of the current Pakistani establishment towards India and her forces are not hidden from anyone. Approximately 10-12 personnel of the Armed Forces have been martyred in the concerted terror attacks in the past two weeks, and several others have been injured. Given that the Garud Commando Force is one of the counter terrorist forces that were also involved in beating back the terrorist attack at Pathankot airbase of the IAF in 2016, a leak of their operational procedures to the enemy forces is the best recipe for a disaster.
As per the sources of Delhi Police, the next step forward in the process would be a written request to the Facebook and WhatsApp in a bid to seek the transcript of the deleted chats, given that the two handles have been deactivated following the arrest of Mr. Arun Marwaha. According to the investigation officer, this would be crucial to the case, as tracing the IP addresses would be far from being an easy task. This is because the IP addresses can be masked by ISI, which makes it tough to be traced out.
To sum up the case, the leak of such important documents to a honeytrap stands testimony to an impending truth: Social media is a two-faced weapon. If it’s not used with care, cases like that of Arun Marwaha can put the security of both the medium and the nation in trouble.