Ex-NSC security head is summoned, all airports alerted against escape

Arrested systems analyst says he was promised $50,000 from US diplomat, got $12,000: police; probe net closer to Saini

Alerts via look-out circulars have been issued to airports across the country to ensure that former Navy commander Mukesh Saini, who was the information security specialist at the National Security Council Secretariat before he quit to join a US software firm, doesn’t leave the country.

Saini has also been summoned by the Delhi police to join the probe into what investigators call the most serious cyber-breach ever at the highest levels of the intelligence establishment.

Saini, as first reported by The Sunday Express on July 2, has already been questioned in the ongoing investigations by the Intelligence Bureau.

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In his capacity as head of the National Informational Security Coordination Cell that reports to National Security Advisor M K Narayanan, Saini was also the co-ordinator from the Indian side of the Indo-US Cyber Security Forum.

He has been summoned under relevant CrPC sections on the grounds that he ‘‘appears to be acquainted with facts and circumstances of the case.’’

Saini’s name first cropped up during the interrogation of S S Paul, the NSCS systems analyst who is under arrest for allegedly leaking information to a US diplomat Rosanna Minchew.

Paul has alleged that Saini introduced him to Minchew at last year’s Cyber Security forum meet. Also, he has claimed that Saini knew the diplomat for the past two years.

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Minchew, sources said, is said to have promised Paul $50,000 in lieu of his help with information. Interrogations further revealed that Paul received $12,000 from Minchew last year and he spent the same on a trip to Singapore last December.

In his statement, sources said, Paul claimed he was helping Minchew in a “research” project at Saini’s behest and gave her two pen drives with data.