The Octopus Gang In Muddy Shallows

Call him one of India's best information banks on defence procurement secrets. Middleman and flashy arms dealer Abhishek Verma and his associates gained access to a wide range of sensitive information that has shocked the CBI investigators probing the naval war room leak case. From a note on the acquisition of 126 multi-role combat aircraft for the air force to "secret" minutes of a meeting of the defence procurement board, Verma & Co managed to penetrate and source documents from the ministry of defence (MoD) and the headquarters of the three services with unbelievable ease. Both these documents are now part of the 369 pages of secret documents that the CBI has annexed to its chargesheet against Verma.

Interestingly, this material has been forensically recovered from just one pen drive. Kulbhushan Parashar, vice president of Atlas Defence Systems, a company Verma co-founded, had eight such pen drives full of data. The CBI has so far traced only three. Of these, one has been electronically erased, while the remaining two have yielded a massive 7,500 pages marked secret and confidential. Part of these documents were submitted to the court in July this year.

Ironically, the navy's board of inquiry which first probed the war room leak chose to deliberately ignore the very files that the CBI has now annexed as "evidence" against Verma and his co-accused-Ravi Shankaran and Kulbhushan Parashar. Initially, it was thought that the war room leak was limited to the navy's procurement plans. But CBI's investigations have revealed that Verma not only enjoyed considerable access to the army and air force but also to notes sent by the US embassy in Delhi to senior defence officers. Sample the secret documents recovered by the CBI:

• Note prepared by Integrated Defence Headquarters (IDS) dated December 17, 2004, regarding the army's 10th plan.
  
• An appendix to a note prepared by IDS HQs regarding air force procurement proposals.
  
• Note on multi-role combat aircraft for the air force with acquisition plan (2004-2006).
  
• Secret defence ministry note regarding record of discussions of the meeting of the defence procurement board.
  
• Letter dated December 16, 2004, with annexures from Greg Winston, office of defence cooperation, US embassy, New Delhi, to Major General Kunal Mukherjee, additional director, war establishment directorate.
  
• Letter written by then defence minister Pranab Mukherjee to former Lok Sabha MP Ramjibhai B. Manvani dated August 4, 2004.
  
• An appendix to a note prepared by IDS HQ regarding details of the navy's Tenth Plan proposals.
  
• A letter written by joint secretary Gautam Mukhopadhya, in charge of planning and international cooperation in the ministry of defence. The letter was addressed to the Indian high commission in London. But someone faxed a copy to "A. Verma".
  
• Part of a contract drawn up for a 74-million-dollar deal relating to the procurement of fighter aircraft and related training aid equipment.
  
• A confidential draft regarding the naval staff quality requirements for submarine sensors.

So far the documents recovered from the pen drives also reveal the maze of companies dealing in the supply of defence equipment to the three services. According to the CBI, a document recovered from the pen drive with Parashar is a letter of power of attorney addressed to Mohan Ray Dayal by the manufacturers of the MiG aircraft. While the MiG Corporation caters to the bulk of the Indian air force's spare-parts requirement, it is presently all set to sell 32 MiG-29 aircraft to the navy as a part of the package for the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier. The recovery of this document from the pen drive, a copy of which was sent to Parashar by email, the CBI states, is conclusive proof of the range of activities Atlas was involved in.

What is also worrying is the access that Verma, Parashar and Shankaran enjoyed not just in the defence ministry but other security agencies as well. An Intelligence Bureau report of 2003 (UO No 7/PM (U)/2003-(Gen)-343) was also recovered from Parashar. Ironically, this was a report made by the IB on Parashar's activities from 2003. Which means he had been under surveillance since then, if not earlier. Investigators are yet to identify the person who passed on this document to Parashar.

For now the CBI is busy investigating the vast network of officers who helped Verma and his co-accused in ferreting out information from the MoD. The CBI recently arrested a retired naval officer, Captain S.S. Rathore, from his residence in Noida. Rathore, the CBI alleges, was part of Verma's network and used to work in the procurement directorate.

There are some other leads that the CBI is pursuing. Among these are the details of calls made from a Swiss mobile sim card that was recovered during the raid on Verma's farmhouse. Investigators say that the call details of the number 0041795325022 could prove to be embarrassing for the government since Verma is said to have called many politicians from that number. "We are yet to issue letters rogatory to get the details of the calls," a CBI official revealed to Outlook.

Meanwhile, the metropolitan court has also issued notices to the CBI after the magistrate received an anonymous letter which alleged that Verma tampered with evidence in the case when he was given parole for five hours to meet his ailing mother. While he was accompanied by the investigating officer, there are allegations that Verma made calls to senior politicians and also sent emails to his foreign contacts. The CBI has been asked to investigate these allegations and furnish a report to the court by the end of this month.

As the CBI investigations continue, it is clear that the war room leak case will go down in naval and MoD history as an episode that has brought to the fore the underbelly of India's arms procurement machine. Clearly, the new defence minister, A.K. Antony, has his task cut out. He will have to put in place a credible and foolproof arms acquisition policy quickly as India emerges as one of the largest arms market in the world.