In a recent development, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has announced that two more individuals have been convicted and sentenced in the Pakistan-linked Visakhapatnam Navy espionage case. According to the agency, the special court at Visakhapatnam has sentenced Kalavalapalli Konda Babu and Aviansh Somal to five years and 10 months of Simple Imprisonment under sections 18 of UA Act and section 3 of the Official Secrets Act.
The NIA also mentioned that a fine of Rs 5,000 has been imposed on each accused, and failure to pay will result in an additional year of SI. This brings the total number of convicted individuals in the case to six, all of whom were found guilty of spying at important Indian Navy establishments with the intention of threatening the country's unity, integrity, security, and sovereignty.
The two accused persons, who were arrested in December 2019 from Mumbai and Karwar, were identified as Kalavalapalli Konda Babu from Visakhapatnam District and Aviansh Somal from Kangra District. The case, RC-05/2019/NIA/HYD, revealed that they were communicating with foreign intelligence agencies through WhatsApp and were involved in sharing sensitive and classified information related to Indian Defence establishments and deployments.
Further investigation revealed that they had initially come in contact with Pakistan intelligence agents through Facebook and were receiving financial benefits in exchange for secret and classified information from accused individuals Abdul Rehman, Haroon Lakdawala, Shaista Qaiser, and Imran Giteli, who were convicted earlier this year. The NIA also found evidence of these four accused depositing money into the accounts of the convicted individuals as part of the espionage conspiracy.
The NIA took over the case in December 2019 from the Counter-Intelligence Police Station, Intelligence Department, Vijayawada and has since arrested a total of 15 accused persons. In June 2020, the agency had charge-sheeted 14 accused persons, followed by a supplementary charge sheet against one more accused in March 2021. The investigation and trial against the remaining accused persons in the case are ongoing.
