Rahul Gangal, a Canadian citizen, was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday for his alleged participation in a case of defense espionage. Sources claim that Vivek Raghuvanshi, a detained journalist, was providing Gangal with sensitive defense and armed forces documents. Gangal has worked as a defense dealer and he is associated with a Germany-based consultancy firm, Roland Berger.

Rahul Gangal, a businessman who had taken Permanent Residency in Canada in 2019, was arrested in the case when he landed here on Monday, they said. He has been sent to four days of custody of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) by a special court, the officials said.

The most recent arrest comes months after a retired Navy captain and an independent journalist were detained by the federal probe agency in May on suspicion of espionage.

Ashish Pathak, a former captain of the Indian Navy, and Vivek Raghuvanshi, an independent journalist, are charged with illegally gathering sensitive material about defense issues and passing it on to foreign intelligence agencies, according to news agency PTI.

Raghuvanshi is listed as the India correspondent of a US-based portal on defense and strategic affairs on its website. Before his arrest, CBI searched 12 places in Jaipur and Delhi linked to him and also spoke to people close to him.

Several sensitive documents were recovered during the searches.

In its chargesheet, the CBI had booked Raghuvanshi and Pathak under Section 3 (spying) of the Official Secrets Act and with Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.

Image source: PTI