New Delhi: A Chinese and a Nepalese national have been arrested by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police in connection with an espionage case in which a senior Delhi-based journalist, Rajeev Sharma, was earlier booked under the Official Secrets Act. It was alleged that he was found in possession of confidential defence documents.
The police today said the two foreign nationals were involved in a spying racket of which Sharma was also a part.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Sanjeev Kumar Yadav went on record to state, “Special Cell has arrested a freelance journalist Rajeev Sharma for passing sensitive information to Chinese intelligence. One Chinese lady and her Nepalese associate also arrested for paying him large amounts of money routed through shell companies. Chinese intelligence tasked the journalist for conveying sensitive information in lieu of large amounts of money. A large number of mobile phones, laptops, and other incriminating/sensitive material have been recovered.”
The police said Sharma, who is a resident of Pitampura, was arrested on September 14. He runs a YouTube channel called ‘Rajeev Kishkindha’ that has nearly 12,000 subscribers.
While announcing Sharma’s arrest on September 18 evening, the Delhi police claimed he was found in possession of confidential defence documents.
A press statement by Delhi police said: “…Rajeev Sharma…has been arrested by the Special Cell in an Official Secrets Act case. He was found to be in possession of some Defence-related classified documents. Investigation of the case is in progress and further details will be shared in due course.”
The senior journalist, who has served with prominent newspapers and agencies such as The Tribune, Sakaal Times and United News of India in the past and also written for various publications like the Chinese newspaper Global Times, was subsequently produced in a Delhi court on September 15. He was remanded in police custody for six days.
The day he was arrested, Sharma – who is a known strategic affairs analyst – had uploaded two videos.
The police said one of these videos was of eight-minute duration and titled ‘China may still do mischief #IndiaChinaFaceOff’. In this, they said he commented that “despite an agreement… reached between the foreign ministers of India and China, the road to peace is still heavily mined. There is still no guarantee that everything will play out as per the script reached between the two foreign ministers in Moscow.”
The second video, according to the police, was of four minutes duration and recorded in Hindi. It was a commentary on the state of the media and ran with the caption, “The state of Indian media today is pathetic. It was supposed to be a watchdog. Instead it has become a lapdog of the government.”
Recently, Sharma had on September 7, written an article for Global Times which ran with the heading: ‘A rapprochement road map for Beijing and New Delhi benefits both countries’.
In this, he had said: “The steady deterioration of bilateral relations since the night of May 5, when the latest standoff began, has practically evaporated all the diplomatic gains of the past years in one stroke. The current crisis is the biggest threat to normal ties between the two sides since 1962. It’s a lose-lose situation for both. Their common objective must be to build a better and peaceful future for their peoples and not a military build-up against one another.”
Sharma’s arrest caught everyone by surprise as he was not seen as one inimical to the current establishment. In fact, in May 2014, soon after the Narendra Modi government was formed at the Centre he had written an article on “Why ex-IB chief Ajit Doval is the best NSA India could ever get”. Therein, he had spoken about his “thousands of interactions with Doval”.
Being an accredited journalist, Sharma was regularly seen at all the media hotspots. He used to also update his social media pages regularly.
Last year, he was among those who expressed the apprehension that his phone may be under surveillance through the Pegasus spyware and that he received a WhatsApp message from a Canada-based NGO warning him about it.